#Foolish size is mostly based on the fact that he at some point needs to fit all of Punz in his mouth

[pomellon]

What’s the koolish height difference like in the dragon au? :3

I want to imagine that they were originally the same height but after Karl’s crystallization he can use Foolish’s toe beans as a mattress or something XD

They were really close to the same height originally, foolish just being a teeny bit taller :D

But yeah if we count Foolish's leviathan size it's closer to this XD

I should mentioned that Foolish don't look the same when he takes his true size btw! He would definitely look older and more worn out if that makes sense, big and longer scales, spins, fins and horn!

[gerrycoco]

Here are chapter 4 and 5 of the TOL fanfic I’m writing based on @nwarrior777 comic. I’d been meaning to post chapter 4 a while back but hadn’t been sure where my cut off was between these two chapters until I finished them today. 

Hope you enjoy and more should be coming soon hopefully! 

You can also read this fic on ao3

Chapter 4 

The weeks ticked away slowly but surely at the Academy, summer turning into fall and steadily veering into winter. I continued to have the best of fun with Tamara doing all sorts of shenanigans.

With the end of October came Halloween where she snuck us out to go trick or treating when Halloween came around. As we finished up grabbing as much candy as we could, I only half noticed how cold the weather was becoming.

A few weeks later there came the first snowfall, which everyone was super excited about. After a particularly big snowfall most of the residents of the Academy, myself and Tamara included, found ourselves in the outdoor courtyard making snowmen.

Given my nature of not being very good at anything, my own attempts at making a snowman were quite subpar. I could see others not far away snickering among themselves, probably whispering about how ironic it was that someone with ice powers was so bad at stuff involving snow.

I was rather preoccupied by my increasing discomfort at being in the cold to really notice them. Tamara, however, glared in their direction as she joined me after reappearing from having gone to get some extra accessories for our snowmen. "Don't listen to them, Demian," she said, "this isn't a competition or anything, the whole point is just to have fun."

"Yeah I know," I replied, trying to blow on my hands to get them warmer, which only made things worse as with my powers all I did was blow frost over my fingers. It was then that I realized that I didn't have to go about making a snowman the old fashion way. Stretching my hands out in front of me me I tried summoning the snow around me to form into a shape.

"Demian maybe that isn't a good idea," Tamara said, her voice filled with concern, "the doctors told you to be careful about how long you spend in the snow and you already look really cold. I think we should go back inside."

"Hang on, just give me a minute," I managed to reply despite my teeth chattering loudly due to how cold I was. A small crowd of others had come by to watch curiously and I was not about to give them another reason to tease me. Within moments I'd accumulated a pile of snow that I was twisting and bending with frost from my own hands. I’d stopped shivering by then so I ignored how painfully cold I was feeling and concentrated to finish what I was doing.

Soon I had made a full sized snowman, but this time shaped like an actual human. "Tada," I said, with difficulty, now that my whole face felt frozen, "say hello to snow Tamara!" The others all gasped as they came closer to inspect the near perfect snow and ice replica of my friend.

Tamara herself however looked at me, a very stern expression on her face as she grabbed my hand and teleported us inside. Once she was done she dropped my hand and glared at me, looking quite mad. "What were you thinking?! That was dangerous!" she exclaimed loudly.

"What do you mean?" I meant to ask, surprised by how angry she looked. I never got the chance to do so though as everything suddenly went dark.

***********************************************

"You got him here just in time so thankfully he's going to be alright," I heard an unknown voice say.

I groaned as I tried to stir, finding that my whole body was tingling from the sensation of me slowly defrosting. With difficulty I managed to open my eyes, to see that I was in the back room of the infirmary.

"What, what happened?" I asked, the words slightly slurred as my mouth and tongue still hadn't regained full sensation.

"You did something really stupid is what happened," Tamara spat out, angrily wiping tears from her eyes. She then ran out of the room, leaving me alone with who I now saw was a nurse.

“Tamara wait!” I called out. I tried to sit up so I could go after her but realized I was still too numb to do so.

“Woah take it easy there,” the nurse said, putting a hand on my shoulder to prevent me from trying again. “You need to stay lying down for a while longer, your body likely can’t tolerate going into an upright position just yet,” he explained to me. “Right now you need to rest. The doctor should be here shortly to check up on you to make sure you’re doing alright.”

I sighed unhappily but nodded in resignation. The image of Tamara’s face was burnt into my mind as I replayed the scene again over and over again. She had looked so scared and hurt, I felt terrible for putting her through what I imagined was a rather frightening experience.

My wallowing was interrupted by the arrival of the doctor, who I saw was the same I had met when first arriving at the Academy. “We meet again young man,” he said, though he clearly was far from delighted to be seeing me at the present. “That was a very foolish thing you did back there.”

“Yeah I know…” I replied, feeling the guilt weigh on my chest. Added to the fact that I fail at basically everything, I’ve also never exactly been known for being a particularly smart person. Even back at home, my family would usually avoid leaving me alone for extended periods of time.

“It’s a good thing your friend was there and that she was able to teleport you back inside when she did,” the doctor went on, his brows creasing into a concerned frown. He looked over at the monitor I’d been hooked up to and then picked up the chart on my bedside to examine it as well. “Thankfully you hadn’t gone far beyond moderate hypothermia and so your loss of consciousness was likely a form of rewarming shock.”

“I… I didn’t realize it had gotten that bad..” I said, feeling quite scared myself now that the reality of what had just happened was sinking in. “I wasn’t even shivering at the end.”

“Well that’s because shivering is only associated with the milder forms of hypothermia,” the doctor explained, putting the chart down and pulling out a small flashlight from his pocket. He then proceeded to point it in front of each eye and had me follow the beam with my gaze. “We already knew that you would be more sensitive to cold, but it appears now that because of your powers you’ve gone from warm blooded to cold blooded, no pun intended.”

“You mean, like a lizard?” I asked, my brain feeling a bit fuzzy as I tried to process what the doctor was telling me while spots danced in my vision from having the flashlight directed at my eyes.

“Yes precisely, or almost anyway,” the doctor replied, “cold-blooded creatures can’t internally cool themselves off while you have no problem with that. However, like them, you appear to have difficulty with generating sufficient body heat without some external help, which would explain why you progressed so quickly into an increasing hypothermic state.”

I simply blinked at him in response, his sciency explanations were too much for my thawing brain to understand. He appeared to see the look of overall confusion in my eyes and he gave me a small half-smile as he put the flashlight away in his pocket.

“The point is,” he went on, “from now on you will have to take extra special care to make sure you only spend short periods of time in cold environments.”

********************************************* I took the doctor’s word very seriously once I was allowed to leave the infirmary. Not only did I completely avoid going outside, I also made sure to always have an extra warm sweater as well as a hoodie wherever I went. While it might have been overkill, I didn’t want to risk anything happening again.

Mostly I kept to myself as the others gave me looks whenever I was in the common areas or the cafeteria. They had either been there to see me almost freeze to death or had heard about it as gossip spread rapidly around the Academy. I therefore spent the next few days in my room waiting for something new to happen so they wouldn’t be focused on me anymore. Time passed slowly though as I spent it alone seeing Tamara and I hadn’t spoken since the incident.

While normally she was constantly popping into my room to hang out, almost a week went by without me seeing her at all. She had obviously been very upset by my actions and I figured she was still mad at me about it. I really wanted to go and apologize, but, because of her teleportation powers, Tamara was very good at making sure she wasn’t able to be found if she didn’t want to be.

After a few days I decided it had gone on for long enough and decided to park myself outside her room. I figured if I stayed there at one point she’d have no choice but to talk to me. There was always the risk of her teleporting in and out of her room without ever having to use the door, but Tamara could usually only teleport so many times in a day before it started draining her too much and she risked ending up in the wrong place.

I decided then to go and wait outside her bedroom door after dinner time since she was more likely to be tired then and therefore less likely to use her powers to disappear on me. I’d been sitting there for a while, just scrolling on my phone as I waited, when I finally saw her walking down the hallway towards her room. She hadn’t noticed me yet, her head bent and gaze stuck around her shoes, looking about as miserable as I had been feeling.

“Tamara!” I called out, popping her out of her thoughts as her head snapped up at the sound of my voice. At this point she was about ten steps away from her door and I could see in her eyes that she was weighing whether it was worth it to try teleporting past me.

I stood up quickly and walked the distance between us, putting my hand on her arm. “Tamara, please,” I pleaded, “can we talk? I’d really like to apologize…”

She grimaced for a moment then let out a sigh. “Fine,” she replied, removing my hand and going to her bedroom door. I followed closely as she opened it, hoping that she wouldn’t dash in just to slam the door in my face. Instead she held the door open and gestured for me to come inside.

I went and sat down on the chair by the desk while Tamara shut the door before going to sit on the end of her bed. She glanced quickly in my direction before looking away and crossing her arms, visibly still quite upset with me.

I’d spent the time waiting outside her room going through how best to apologize to her, but in that moment all scenarios vanished from my mind as we sat in silence while I tried to figure out the best way to start. “So… I guess I’ll just start off by saying that I’m aware that what I did was really stupid and dangerous and I’m sorry for doing that to you…”

Tamara was silent for a beat before turning to look at me. “What were you even thinking doing that?” she interrogated. “Even without using your powers you’re more at risk when it’s cold, but with what you did you just made it 10 times worse! So what, you just couldn’t help but show off, right?”

I stared at her, surprised for a moment. It hadn’t occurred to me that by using my powers I’d put myself in even greater danger, although thinking about it now it did make sense. “No I wasn’t trying to show off, at least I don’t think so…” I replied, feeling quite uneasy. “I was failing at making a snowman the normal way just like I fail with everything else and then I remembered I have ice powers so, like, why not use the one thing I’m good at that’s actually relevant to the situation for once.”

“You’re telling me you made a snow person that looked just like me and it wasn’t just so you could look good in front of the others after they had made fun of you?” Tamara retorted, looking rather skeptical.

“I mean, maybe a tiny bit,” I admitted, “but mostly I did it because I thought it would make you smile. You’re always doing nice things for me so I just wanted to be able to do something nice for you too for once.”

“R-really?” Tamara asked, her tone now very different.

“Yeah, I just thought it would be funny for you to have a snow twin,” I said, letting out a nervous chuckle.

At this Tamara finally gave me a small smile before it fell away and she suddenly looked quite sad. “I guess I thought you had ignored my warning because you were too busy trying to impress the others. And maybe deep down a part of me was also scared that if it worked you were going to find new friends and wouldn’t want to hang out with me anymore…”

“What? Tamara no of course not…” I replied, getting up from the chair and going to sit down next to her on the bed. “You’re my best friend Tamara, you’re my only friend really. You’re also the reason nothing worse happened since you pretty much saved my life by teleporting us back inside when you did.”

“Damn right I did,” Tamara retorted with a smirk. “I hope you learned your lesson because I might not always be there to save your butt.”

“Oh don’t worry, I don’t plan on making the same mistake again,” I laughed. Tamara gave me a real smile this time and leaned over to hug me tightly.

“Okay enough talk about snow and ice now, how about we go get some hot cocoa?” I suggested.

“Good idea,” Tamara replied before teleporting us out of her room.

Chapter 5 

While I was quite happy to be hanging out with Tamara once again, our time together afterwards was somewhat short lived. Her one year at the Academy was coming to an end and shortly before Christmas she returned home to her family. Thankfully, during the holidays, the Academy made special allowances where they hosted an annual Christmas party and other fun events for family and friends. With this I was kept well occupied up until New Years after which things went back to normal, leaving me to find myself mostly alone once again.

I was able to see my family during visiting weeks of course, but I still wasn’t having much luck in finding any other friends now that Tamara was gone. No one really cared about me when I wasn’t using my powers and ever since my last incident I’d basically decided against doing anything ice related unless it was actually useful, which in the dead of winter it really wasn’t.  

Although my own one year milestone was still a good few months away, I figured I could start looking at different job possibilities to look forward to once I was able to return home. It was better than dying of boredom in the meantime. After all, the Academy had a department set up for the exact purpose of counseling and preparing those who wished to find themselves jobs once their time was up.

This didn’t end up being the most successful endeavor however. While the counselors were very nice and tried to look at different options with me, they had a hard time finding anything that would be a good fit. I’m not sure what I was expecting really, since by being not so great at basically everything I didn’t exactly have very many employable skills. The other issue is that usually the main solution is to try to find something that works with a person’s specific powers. In my case though, this didn’t pan out much since all the actual real jobs that would hire someone with ice powers involved working in very cold environments, and I was not going to make that same mistake twice.

“Unfortunately the only other option I can find is volunteer work,” Lenny, the counselor who had been assigned my case, informed me. “That means you wouldn’t be paid, but it would still be something if ever you’re interested.”

I left the employment center feeling quite disappointed as I headed towards the cafeteria. It was family visiting day and my mom would be arriving soon. Multiple parents and other family members had already started arriving as I entered the cafeteria and sat down at a table while I waited. A few minutes later I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Hi mom,” I said, doing my best to smile as I turned to hug her before she sat down next to me.

“What’s wrong honey?” my mom asked directly. “Something is up, I can tell.”

I blinked with surprise at this. I’d forgotten how perceptive my mom could be. “I… well…” I started, going on to explain to her my less than promising visit with the employment department. “So I might not be able to get an actual job once I’m done here…” I added, looking down at my hands, blinking my eyes madly as I tried not to cry.  

“I see,” my mother replied. She reached over to take one of my hands in her own and gave it a tight squeeze. I looked up at her to see her smiling warmly at me. “Demian, just remember that no matter what happens, whether you manage to find a job or not, you will always have a place at home waiting for you,” she said tenderly as her free hand went to wipe away a tear that had slid down my cheek.

I gave her a watery smile as I leaned in to hug her tightly. “Thank you mom, I love you,” I said, sniffling softly.

“I love you too sweetheart,” my mother replied, hugging me back just as tightly. “Always have and always will.

****************************************

After the visit with my mother I felt somewhat better about my future beyond the Academy. Though I still didn’t exactly know how I would ever manage to find a job, I also knew that I couldn’t give up trying.

My mood was also greatly improved by Tamara’s sudden and unexpected return to the Academy mid February. She’d had an unfortunate mishap with her powers, although she hadn’t really wanted to talk about it much upon her return. Bottom line was that she needed to be monitored at the Academy for another year now because of it. While I found that extremely unfortunate for her, I was also, rather selfishly, quite happy to have her back around.

It was only about a month later that she was finally willing to explain to me what had happened. Apparently when she had gone back home she had bumped into a former partner she had been dating not long before she had arrived at the Academy. They stayed in contact for the first little while after she had discovered her powers, however the long distance slowly became a strain on their relationship.

“At that point we agreed it was best to take a break and reconnect once I was able to go back home after my year was up,” Tamara explained to me.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about this?” I asked, feeling surprised and almost a bit hurt that I’d never heard about this before.

“I guess I didn’t want to get my hopes up too high just in case it didn’t work out,” she replied. “In the end that’s what happened because when I finally saw them again they were dating someone else…”

“Oh Tamara… I’m so sorry…” I said, gently putting my hand on her shoulder.

“It’s okay,” she said, though she had a sad look in her eye. “It was for the best really, I don’t think we would’ve lasted very long in the end. But this happened on Valentine's Day of all days so needless to say I wasn’t feeling great after that. After seeing them together with their new partner I almost ran home, trying not to cry. I tried to teleport back but instead of my room I somehow ended up on Mars.”

“Mars?! You mean, like the planet?” I asked, shocked and confused.

“Yep,” Tamara replied. “Luckily I quickly teleported back to Earth, first in Antarctica and then at the top of the Eiffel Tower. It took a few tries but I finally made it home before coming back here and begging them to put me on blockators. I felt like I was going insane.”

“Wow that’s crazy,” I said, not sure what else to say at this point.

“Yeah…” Tamara acquiesced, her gaze downcast. “I’ve never really been lucky with dating anyway so I guess it’s not really all that surprising. I am a bit much after all and I’m not really dating material…”

“Absolutely not!” I protested, offended that my friend could think so low of herself. “You are funny and adorable and super thoughtful and anyone would be lucky to date you!” I exclaimed, tapping the table with insistence with every new point I added.

Tamara laughed at my display, most of the sadness now gone from her eyes. “Thank you, I really needed that,” she giggled. “But that makes me think, what about you? I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned anything about dating either.”

“Oh,” I replied meekly, now that I was being put on the spot. “I haven’t ever really dated to be honest…”

“Really? Like you’ve never had a girlfriend… or a boyfriend?” Tamara asked, leaving the door open for me to fill in the blank.

I could feel myself blushing at this, feeling a bit embarrassed about the topic. “I, uh… I guess I’m not totally sure where I stand in terms of sexuality… it’s never felt super clear for me and I haven’t really had the chance to figure it out for myself quite yet.”

“That’s okay then,” Tamara said, smiling kindly. “There’s no rush for you to find an answer or anything. And if ever you do figure it out and feel like dating whoever it is will also be lucky to be with someone like you.”

“Thanks Tamara,” I said, smiling back at her.

“Just for the record, you’re great and everything, but you’re not my type dude,” Tamara stated matter of factly. We looked at each other seriously for a moment before both bursting into laughter so hard we were in tears.

**************************** Before I knew it there was only one month left before I was to leave the Academy. Poor Lenny was still doing his best to try and find me a job but unless I miraculously developed an actual useful workskill there was only so much he could do.

Of course I was allowed to stay on at the Academy once my time was up in order to volunteer and help with the newcomers. I would be allowed to room and board there by doing so but it wasn’t an actual job or anything and that wasn’t something that actually paid. Because of the laws and regulations put in place for awakened, there needed to remain a place for them to stay if they weren’t able to return to society for one reason or another. To avoid people taking advantage of that and using it as an easy way out to not have to work, the Academy stipulated that they would not pay permanent/long term residents. Instead it was a barter type system where those who wished to stay had to contribute in some form or fashion according to their powers or abilities.

Some people, both within and outside the Academy, still saw it as a lazy option while others saw it as the epitome of despair. I thought both those views were rather extreme and unfair. However, I also didn’t want to stay at the Academy forever. I wasn’t ready to believe that there was truly nothing out there for me, not yet at least. The only thing that made me feel better was knowing that Tamara was also still going to be around for a good few more months even if I did wind up having to stay at the Academy for longer.

There was also the option of going back home to my parents for a while before coming back to stay at the Academy. That way I could stay with them for a bit and then move back into the Academy the next time I would be coming in for my regular post one year check in to make sure my powers were still stable. As time went on I figured I would go with that option since I hadn't gone home in nearly a year and had mainly seen my parents during visits. That way I would get to spend some time with the rest of my family but also come back to be with Tamara for the time she had left at the Academy.

I was starting to pack my stuff when I heard an unexpected knock at my door. I was confused as to who it could be, since Tamara usually just let herself in at this point. Putting down the shirt I’d been trying to fold I went to open the door, surprised to see Lenny standing there. “Lenny, what are you doing here?”

“Hi Demian,” Lenny greeted me, “I know you’ve been planning on going home soon but I have some interesting news for you that might just change your mind…”

[thiswasinevitableid]

“Listen you need to dance with me right now” pairing and scenario of your choice

Here you go! I went with Indruck and a college-ish AU

“Listen, you need to dance with me right now”

Duck turns around in the black pleather booth and finds a man about his age, silvery hair tousled out at odd angles and red glasses perched on his nose, smiling at him nervously. 

“Not beatin around the bush are you?” He smirks.

“Huh? Oh, ah, this is not a flirtation attempt, Ah, that is, not that you are unappealing, just, nevermind, this was foolish.”

He turns away, and Duck grabs his elbow, “whoah, hey, didn’t say I wasn’t interested. Not about to turn down a dance from a cute guy.”

Tension drains from the man’s shoulders as Duck stands leads them towards the strobing light of the dance floor, “Thank goodness. Wait, what did you say?”

“I said” Duck pulls him close as the current song winds down, “I think you’re cute, sugar.”

“There’s no need to pretend that’s true. As I said, this isn’t about flirtation.” 

“Then what is it about?”

His new friend thinks as the tempo grinds down to slow beat, couples flowing on and off the floor around them. It’s the kind of gay bar where anyone who falls under the rainbow banner can go to look for a partner. Duck himself is on the hunt for something to banish the taste of a bad break-up from his mouth. 

His original plan for the night involved sitting in the dark in his bedroom, watching nature documentaries until he no longer felt the dull heartbreak oozing in his chest. But Juno, his roommate, insisted he come with her for a night on the town.  So he’d settled on a new plan: get laid by someone who likes hairy guys with some fat on top of their muscle in hopes of not remembering all his insecurities, ones drilled deeper under his skin by his exes parting words. 

The man currently holding his hands with all the confidence of a freshman at their first homecoming dance hadn’t been on his radar until a minute ago. For the life of him, Duck can’t figure out why. Sure, he’s weird and messy, but he’s so singular looking Duck’s amazed everyone in the room isn’t trying to cut in.

“It’s about keeping you safe.” The man whispers, jarring him from his thoughts, their proximity the only reason Duck can hear him over the music. 

“Come again?”

“Do you see that gentleman who just walked in?”

Duck turns them in time to see a blonde man with the build of a water-polo player enter the bar.

“Mr. Salmon T-shirt?”

“Correct. Had you not danced with me, there was a high chance he would ask you instead. All would have gone well until you two decided to use the back alley for some, um, quick relief to the fact you were both very turned on. It would be at this point that he would try something you did not want, you’d push him away, and he would punch you before slinking back inside. I assumed you’d prefer not to end your night with a black eye.”

“Got that right. So if you’re dancin’ with me for my own good, what happens to him?” 

The man’s face goes worryingly blank, then he shakes his head as if clearing it, “he gets very drunk very quickly, starts spouting unkind words at Joseph over there and promptly gets bounced by the bartender.”

Duck snorts, “that’s what he gets for talkin shit near Barclay. Think the only thing that actually makes that man mad is when someone is rude about his boyfriend.”

“That’s my experience as well.”

“You know Barclay too? I mean, not just as a bartender?”

“Correct. You know how he has someone living in a trailer on his land?”

“Yeah? Wait, holy shit, you’re Indrid?”

A nod.

“I’ll be damned, Dani kept sayin she wanted to introduce us. I’m-”

“Duck Newton.” Indrid says along with him.

Okay, that was a little weird. 

“Y’know, s’okay if you actually hold onto me while you’re apparently savin me a fight.”

Indrid presses closer, but his hold on Duck is still light, as if he’s afraid of trapping him. A happy sigh drifts between them.

“You’re so warm. It’s very nice.” Indrid murmurs

Duck draws Indrid’s hand close to his mouth, blowing across the chilly fingers. Another sigh, Indrid actually curling his arm around Duck’s shoulders. He seems to relax when Duck talks, so he says the first thing he can think of.

“You’re in the art grad program, right?”

“Indeed. You’re in forestry, yes?”

“Yep.”

“Fascinating.”

“That ain’t the usual reaction.” Duck smiles up at him, “Once you start talking about tree taxonomy or forest health, people’s eyes start glazin over.”

Indrid cocks his head, “How does one measure the health of something as complex as a forest?”

And so Duck spends two songs explaining the answer, Indrid listening attentively and asking questions. Thank god the DJ is in a slow jam mood, so he doesn’t have to shout about pest control over some sort of horrible, rapid bass-line.  Not wanting to be rude, he spends song number three asking Indrid about how he chose illustration as his focus in his art program.

By the end of the song, Indrid’s left hand has slipped into Duck’s back pocket, and Duck knows he won’t be interested int dancing with anyone else for the rest of the night.

He gives his best sweet southern boy grin and nuzzles Indrid’s cheek. 

“Gotta say, think you win for creative excuses for askin a guy to dance.”

Indrid deflates and hunches in on himself, his hands dropping from Duck’s body, though he otherwise stays put.

“It’s not an excuse. I was just trying to help.”

“Indrid, how could you possibly know what was gonna happen?”

“I just can!” He snaps, recoiling instantly at the sound, “I can see the future. I’ve always been able to. Not that anyone, save for a few close friends, believes me when I tell them.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, “there are no longer futures where you get punched, so I will leave you alone.”

“Indrid, wait, I’m sorry.” 

“It’s alright, Duck, I’m not upset. Enjoy the rest of your night.” Indrid turns away.

“Do you wanna go grab something to eat?” He thought through the offer for exactly zero seconds, but he knows it’s what he wants the moment he says it. 

Indrid blinks at him, then smiles small and odd, “That was...unexpected.”

Duck holds his breath.

“I accept your offer.” The grin is wider now, to the point that it’s a bit unnerving. Indrid must notice, and forces the smile to a normal size, “where would you like to go?”

Duck takes his hand, leading him out into the night and down the street. There’s a Mel’s Diner standing mostly empty on the corner two blocks away, and they slip inside. Duck orders a burger and fries, Indrid an orange creamsicle shake. The taller man’s fingers drum on the Formica table top.

He waffles on what he wants to say, how much he wants to share.

“Sometimes a glowing blue woman appears in my room.” 

Indrid’s eyebrows shoot to the top of his head, “there was only one future where you admitted that.”

“You actually believe me?”

“Of course. Why would you lie about such a thing?”

“I….I dunno.” Duck shrugs, rubbing his forearm, “tried tellin one or two other people and they looked at me like I was losin it. Been happenin since I turned eighteen, along with these weird vision-y dreams. Gets kinda old.”

“And you’re telling me because you think the fact I see the future makes me more likely to believe you.”

“Yeah. Uh, did you see that comin or just connect the dots?”

“Both. I take it you believe me now?” Indrid fiddles with the drawstring on his sweatshirt.

“Did the second I saw how hurt you looked.  Know exactly what bein on the wrong side of disbelief feels like.” Duck pauses as the server sets down their food, “Let me buy you dinner as an apology?”

“Gladly.” Indrid sips his milkshake, and Duck freezes mid-bite at the way his cheeks hollow and the little sigh of pleasure he lets out.

Indrid catches him staring, and licks his lips with a smirk. Duck hides behind his burger. 

“So, uh, why were you at the bar?”

“Bear hunting.” Indrid deadpans. It’s only when a blush splashes up Duck’s cheeks that he breaks into a smile, “I’m kidding. Mostly. I’ve been trying to get out more. I can be a bit reclusive, as I like my privacy and my hobbies and coursework are all solitary. You?”

“Gettin over an ex.” He shoves fries into his mouth, not quite ready to say more. Somehow that topic is even more intimidating than revealing his weird powers. Indrid nods in understanding, polishing off the first half of his shake with terrifying speed. Roy Orbison wails “Only the Lonely” from the Jukebox.

“Hardly the music for it. Hmm” Indrid flips through the options on the table-side music selector. The pink and blue neon flashes through the window and along the angles of his face. He looks so ethereal.

Duck is so screwed.

“Ah, here we are.” Indrid digs into his pocket, pulling out a quarter and dropping it into the machine. 

After a few moments, a voice croons from the speakers.

Love me tender, love me sweet

“Fan of the classics, huh?” Duck rests his elbow on the table and his cheek in his palm.

“I find Elvis and his contemporaries pleasant to draw to.”

“Know what else they’re good for?” Duck bounces his eyebrows. 

“Yes, but I want to hear you say it anyway.”

Duck slides out of the booth, holds out his hand, “Dance with me?”

Indrid takes it, and this time he doesn’t hesitate. His arms drape around Duck, and his head nestles onto his shoulder.

Duck sways them in time with the song, arms around Indrid’s waist. 

“Indrid?”

“Hmm?”

“I meant what I said earlier. About you bein cute. And I really like talkin with you. Would you, uh, wanna go on a date sometime?”

Chapped lips find the base of his neck, and Indrid kisses a slow line up until they’re gazing at each other. 

“Nothing would make me happier, Duck.”

Duck draws his fingers along Indrid’s face, leans in and kisses him in time with the fading melody.

“In that case, sugar, how about you and I go dancing tomorrow night?”

[wellthatjusthappend]

Hi! If you're still taking prompts, please could you write a Ra'sJay, with Ra's courting an oblivious Jason. Jason thinks Ra's is threatening him or sending him some kind of warning. Everyone around him is constantly face-palming because how can someone be so oblivious?

Yeah sure! 

This turned out a little angsty, but Ra’s is a creep so what else is new?

****

“You’re not Tim,” Jason frowned when he opened the door to see Dick standing on his doorstep holding the piece of equipment he’d asked Tim for earlier that day.

“He was pretty busy, so I volunteered,” Dick said scratching the back of his head and smiling ruefully.

“Whatever, just bring it in,” Jason gestured him inside.

Dick hauled the box inside and immediately began chattering about whatever fight Tim and the Demon Brat had gotten into lately as he unpacked it on Jason’s living room floor. He was obviously a little uncomfortable, but seemed determined to act like everything was normal.

Jason squinted at him suspiciously. Were they really going to pretend the last two times they’d seen each other they hadn’t ended up making out like teenagers?

“So, what’d you need this for?” Dick finally asked as he finished setting up the scanner.

Jason debated telling him to fuck off, but he had brought him the equipment.

“Special delivery,” Jason shrugged, gesturing toward the package on his windowsill, “Looks like something from the League, but Talia usually calls if she’s sending something to me. Seeing as Ra’s threw a fit when Talia dumped me in the pit… I figured better safe than sorry.”

“You think it might be something dangerous?” Dick said, instantly becoming serious.

“I already scanned it for explosives and listening devices,” Jason said, “but Tim reckoned it was a good idea to go over it with some of his tech before I started handling it.”

“Probably a good idea,” Dick agreed.

Being careful not to disturb the box, Dick x-rayed the package, checking for more detailed contaminates, while Jason went over it with a magic sniffer Jason Blood had gifted Bruce years back.

“It’s a knife,” Dick said after a moment.

“Nothing too fucked up about it, other then having been in a Lazarus Pit at some point in history,” Jason agreed, setting down the device and kneeling to open up the box. Dick hovered next to him tensely, but Jason ignored him in favor of pulling out a velvet-lined case for the most ornate dagger Jason had ever seen.

“Looks ceremonial,” mused Jason unsheathing the thing gingerly, “Jesus, this thing has got to be old as fuck.”

Dick made a weird strangled sound next to him.

“That’s a courting dagger,” Dick said in shock, “Talia gave Bruce one, ages ago.”

“Huh,” Jason hummed, tilting the mirror like blade in the light, “Kinda romantic. Better than ring or flowers, I’ll give you that.”

“Jason-” Dick began sharply.

“Relax,” Jason rolled his eyes, “It's probably Ra's being a dramatic asshole and warning me off Talia or something.”

“But what if it’s exactly what it looks like?” Dick looked far from convinced.

“What? As a courting gift?” Jason snorted.

“Yeah,” Dick said seriously.

Jason laughed outright at that. How utterly absurd could Dick get?

“Oh, please,” Jason snickered, “Ra’s doesn’t even like me, remember? Besides, isn’t it Timmy who he has the hard on for?”

“Maybe…” Dick frowned, “But still, I remember Bruce talking about how serious that kind of gesture was in the league… Those daggers are precious; they’re not something you just hand out.”

“Yeah, that is weird…” Jason shook his head as he looked at the jewel encrusted hilt. He’d bet his savings that this thing was worth a fortune, “I’ll call Talia and see if she knows anything.”

“I don’t like this,” Dick grumbled.

“Noted,” Jason rolled his eyes as he gathered up the tools he’d borrowed and packed them back the box. Except the magic detectors. He was hoping Dick was distracted enough that he wouldn’t notice Jason had stuffed those under the couch. Those things were fucking useful.

“I think you should come stay at the Manor until we know what Ra’s is planning,” Dick said stubbornly.

“Ha, that sounds like a bloodbath waiting to happen,” Jason snorted.

“At least come stay with me,” Dick pleaded.

That sounded dangerous for a whole host of other reasons.

“Goodbye Dickie,” Jason said pushing the box into his hands and trying to push him out the door.

“Jason, I’m serious,” Dick planted his feet and glowered at him.

He was too pretty to do that very well, Jason mused.

“So am I,” Jason rolled his eyes, “Seriously, it’s fine. If I was worried about it I would have chucked it in the trash.”

“If something happens-” Dick insisted.

“I know how to call for backup,” Jason said dryly. Not that he probably would.

Dick looked like he sincerely wanted to say something else, but finally he shook his head and backed off, “Just… call if you get more info.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jason waved him out and locked the door.

Dick was so paranoid sometimes. And what the fuck was with him and suddenly deciding that everyone and their dog wanted Jason’s ass all of a sudden? Jason knew he was hardly hideous, but pretty much every other member of the Bat’s were miles more attractive than he was. It was just a fact.

Jason plopped down on the couch to call Talia, when he noticed that the velvet bottom of the box the dagger had comin wasn’t laying completely flat. Curious, Jason lifted the padding to find a note hidden at the bottom.

It was in the League’s special dialect of Arabic, but Jason had plenty of practice with that.

-

Hello My Vicious One,

You may remember that although my daughter saw fit to cut corners and restore your mind with the Pit waters, it was I who took you in. I restored your body from the feeble husk it had become. I rid you of the last vestiges of death and taught your soul how to fight once more. Somehow, you walked away from death by your own power, and for that alone you earned my special attention. My daughter may have led you astray and set you on a foolish path for revenge for her own petty purposes, but you have risen above them, without the Bat, and claimed a small part of the underworld as your own.

I have a proposition for you that I think you shall find intriguing. Come to the base where I first raised you from darkness’, and show the guards the dagger I sent you and they will grant you access to my quarters. There we may speak freely.

The Demon Head

-

What the fuck?

Jason had no idea what to make of that. Talia had told him that Ra’s had thought him unworthy because of his lowly origins. Could she have been lying?

As soon as he thought it, Jason snorted. Talia lied all the time, that wasn’t the issue. The question was if Jason wanted to risk going to meet Ra’s. Talia’s contacts wouldn’t hold a candle to the types of resources Ra’s could give him. But of course, Ra’s was also less trustworthy.

Still, offending him was probably an even worse idea.

Dick would throw a fit if he knew Jason was planning to go on his own, but he’d never been good at seeing the bigger picture. A gesture of good faith, that he wouldn’t insult Ra’s by bringing backup to an invitation that was clearly meant for him alone. That being said, Jason wasn’t going to be stupid about it. He’d go as prepared as he could get.

Ra’s said it was the base where he’d been ‘raised from darkness’ so perhaps the place where he’d regained consciousness after wandering blindly through Gotham’s streets? His memories before he’d been pushed into the pit were a confusing mess of images and sensations that made his head ache to try and parse through.

Mostly he remembered the feel of a sword in his hand and the ache in his arms as he was trained, the cool salty smell of the air, the slide of silk cloth against his skin, staring endlessly at the intricate rafters of a ceiling, the low rumble of Ra’s voice, a window where he sometimes kept watch-

Oh. Oh, he knew where he was supposed to go.

-

Stepping foot on Infinity Island was a bit like stepping into a dream that someone else had. Everything familiar and foreign at the same time, but Jason refused to let that sway him: if he was meeting with the Demon Head, there could be no trace of uncertainty in him.

It took longer than expected for Jason to be confronted by assassins. They came at him so quickly he didn’t even have a chance to show them the dagger, instead he focused on taking them down as quickly and thoroughly as possible.

The next set were rightfully more wary.

“Look, your boss invited me here, any chance we could skip this part?” Jason asked holding up the dagger.

There was a ripple of shock through the group and Jason was suddenly being sized up in a completely different manner.

They conferred quickly amongst themselves, and Jason caught the term ‘al sirr’ being thrown around multiple times. He wasn’t familiar with that one.

“We will take you to him,” the leader of the group finally told him with a slight bow.

Interesting.

Jason was led back through the maze of buildings and vegetation that he somewhat recognized.

“We are allowed no further,” the assassin said finally, gesturing for Jason to continue on his own, “Our Master is waiting for you.”

Jason inclined his head and continued on his own. These halls were much more familiar and so was the stillness that made the hair on his neck stand on end. He caught himself switching into the silent lope that Talia had taught him just to avoid the sound of his own footsteps.

God Ra’s was such a creepy fuck.

The door at the end of the hallway could be no one but Ra’s. It was too gaudy to be anyone else's. Jason didn’t bother knocking, just stepped inside.

“Well hello, Jason,” Ra’s greeted him from where he was reclined on an enormous bed, “You’re here sooner than I expected.”

Jason felt distinctly uncomfortable. He supposed Ra’s did say that he coming to his personal quarters so they wouldn’t be overheard. Still… he didn’t expect to come to his bedroom.

“You need a new head of security,” Jason said bluntly instead, “I got way too close to the base without being braced.”

“Indeed. Perhaps you could take over that role?” Ra’s mused.

“What?” Jason frowned.

“A passing fancy,” Ra’s waved his confusion away, “you and I are not at that point yet.”

Jason bit back telling him they’d never be ‘at that point’.

“So are you going to explain what this was about?” Jason asked holding up the dagger Ra’s had given him.

“Oh, just a gesture,” Ra’s said, which Jason didn’t believe for a second. Not with the way he assassin's had reacted. Not with whatever unnamable thing was in Ra’s eyes as they swept over him.

It’s a courting dagger , he could hear Dick telling him. Jason shook it off. There was no way.

“What do you remember about your time here?” Ra’s said rising from the bed and beckoning Jason over.

“Bits and pieces, why?” Jason said suspiciously.

Jason did not like the smile Ra’s gave him.

“Pity… I do wish my daughter had seen fit to leave you in my care. It was not her place to take you for her own,” there was a dark look on Ra’s face, but it was gone just as quickly, “Ah, but it did speed things up. You have become truly magnificent.”

A possessive hand traced over Jason’s side.

Creepy.

“Cut to the chase, Ra’s,” Jason snapped.

This look Ra’s was giving him was also familiar for reason’s Jason didn’t understand. All he knew was that it made him feel small and a bit like he was shutting down. Jason ignored that feeling and tilted his chin up defiantly.

Ra’s looked pleased by the reaction.

“Mmm, very well then,” Ra’s said, “I’ll be frank then, I want access to study your blood. You know what immortality means to me, and you also know how significant it is that you came back without the use of a pit.”

“What, you didn’t get your fill when you had me here?” Jason frowned.

Ra’s had a private smile for that.

“We thought your mind was lost at the time,” Ra’s said, “I had not interest in something that would leave me an empty doll.”

“And now you know it won’t. Great,” huffed Jason, “And what do I get out of this?”

“Free access to the League’s databank and, should you need it, a small elite force of assassins that will do your bidding,” Ra’s listed off.

This deal was a little too good to be true. It made Jason instantly suspicious.

“What’s the catch?” Jason demanded, “Don’t pretend you couldn’t just get samples of my blood easily without all of this.”

Ra’s eyes lingered on the dagger for a moment like he was enjoying a private joke at Jason’s expense.

“I could have, but that would have made it apparent that there might be something interesting in your blood and I am hardly the only one in the world after immortality. I don’t tolerate competitors,” Ra’s was back in Jason’s personal space again, “I’d like you to come personally if I require blood. It’s much nicer that way, is it not?”

Jason didn’t like this, but he did want access to that databases.

“I can call it off any time I want,” Jason finally said.

“Of course.” Ra’s inclined his head.

Jason still felt wary, but he couldn’t think of a reason to say no.

“Alright, deal,” he agreed.

One vial of blood probably wouldn’t do too much harm, and like he’d pointed out before, it’s not like Ra’s couldn’t get it on his own anyway. At least this way Jason got something out of it.

“Sit here,” Ra’s gestured to the bed while he prepared a syringe.

Jason sat cautiously and watching exactly what he was doing just incase he decided to dose him or something instead.

“Remove your jacket and armor,” Ra’s ordered. Jason tipped his head back to say something snarky when he caught sight of something over Ra’s shoulder.

“Is everything alright?” Ra’s asked, watching Jason’s face carefully, “Did you, by chance, remember something?”

“No,” Jason said firmly, carefully calming himself, “It’s nothing. And I’ll just roll up my sleeve, I don’t need to take anything off.”

“...Very well,” Ra’s agreed.

Jason focused all his attention of the blood drawing rather than dwell on the fact that he had so many memories of staring at Ra’s al Ghul’s bedroom ceiling.

-

Jason knocked over a lamp when he hurriedly climbed through Dick’s bedroom window.

“Jay?” Dick said in surprise, lowering his escrima sticks from where he had been crouched in a pair of sleep pants.

“I…” Jason shook his head, trying to shake away the skin crawling memory of Ra’s eyes looking him over, “You said I could stay here for a while?”

“Of course…” Dick frowned, looking him over more closely, “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Jason said curtly, shrugging off his jacket and shoes, “Just tired.”

“Ok…” Dick eyed him warily, “Let me just pull some extra blankets out for the couch-”

“Can I stay here?” Jason interrupted, “with you?”

He didn’t know why he said it, and Dick looked even more alarmed by the request.

“Never mind-” Jason started to backtrack, hand scrubbing through his hair.

“No,” Dick said a little too quickly, “It’s fine, I was just… surprised.”

“Right,” Jason said looking at the ground as he settled on the edge of the bed.

“Did… something happen?” Dick asked.

Jason thought of the possessive hand skimming down his side as Ra’s told him he was a valuable asset. He was probably just imagining things though. Telling Dick would just make him even more paranoid than he already was.

“No,” Jason decided, “Nothing happened. I’m good.”

He didn’t care if Dick didn’t believe him.

[beholdthewatcher]

Statement #01202003b

Continuing from Statement #01202003a, itself a continuation of the Cullenfield Incident. Recorded by subject 20/03/2020.

Marcus looked through the nearest window we could find, first. The bar was a wreck, not to put too fine a point on it, as though a bar brawl had happened with absolutely no patrons to cause such a ruckus. All the barstools were knocked over and seemed to have been rendered that way on purpose, and loose change positively littered the floor. There was no sign of our quarry--until there was, by way of a very large paw that I saw throw another barstool.

We ran for the front door after that, as Dewey was very obviously under attack by the coin that had been, up until some moments prior, inert in his cash register. Having something of a routine down, I quickly switched on my flashlight, revealing the full form of what was now our decidedly less-than-wolf-shaped wolf, which then shrunk in size under the light, going from some gargantuan abomination to the slightly more manageable size of a wolf. It had somewhere between four and twenty limbs; I would give a more accurate estimate if I could, yet the whole of this Shadow Creature shifted and reformed itself on a whim, a trait which became more immediately clear after I became its most pressing nuisance; Though it had Dewey pinned down on the floor by his shoulder, it shifted its form along some unseen axis to pin its focus on me.

Rather predictably, it lashed out with one of its appendages and hit me in the stomach--while it hurt and left a positively nasty bruise that later made breathing difficult, it wasn’t life-threatening. Marcus then shot it, which prompted little by way of reaction save for reverberations that rippled through the wolf’s entire body. While a retaliatory strike was likely, I didn’t see it from my position on the ground.

I called out that we needed to get more light on the wolf, intending the directive for Marcus, as he knew precisely why the light was important. As luck would have it, however, it was Mr. Dewey who, lacking the wolf’s focus on him, escaped and rather gleefully announced that he could help. He threw on his establishment’s lights, causing the wolf to shrink both further and more rapidly. Marcus shot it again for good measure, which prompted our small, shadow-abomination friend to crawl under a lip of the counter to hide.

Peering underneath, we were thankfully greeted with only the sight of a coin, which Marcus promptly took into the back alley to dispose of while I dealt with Dewey. It was easy to convince him not to spread word of these Shadow Creatures, as his wrecked bar and the trauma of brushing up against Death in a waltz of shadow and fang was...plenty to keep his mind occupied. 

I helped him tidy as best I could, mopping, sweeping, and righting a few barstools as he washed out the taste of fearful vomit from his mouth with one of the plethora of drinks in his bar.

I had just set the broom back in whatever cleaning closet I’d gotten it from when I received a call from Mr. Stubin. He sounded worse for the wear as he relayed the fact he was currently holed up in Mr. Cobb’s carpentry store. The details weren’t entirely clear, but it seemed as though Mr. Cobb himself had one of the coins under a great deal of light in some back room, with another one of the Shadow Creatures lurking in the store itself. Being that this accounted for the two coins Marcus and I had yet to track down, I rushed out the back door and dragged Marcus by his arm, charting a course to Mr. Cobb’s store.

Arriving there and looking through the glass storefront at a distance, there was no sign of activity within like there had been at the Crossroads. Trying the front door was more of a formality than anything, though even as we realized it was rather predictably locked, I noticed the glint of pieces of metal, brass in color, scattered across the ground. It was hard to make out, though I theorized they were bullet casings based off of the coloring.

We then made our way into the store by way of a brutalized back door. Moving through the store, I was given the opportunity to realize the brass glint were whole bullets, not just the casings. Sadly, they weren’t of use to Marcus, but we did notice light spilling from a crack under a door, making the location of Mr. Stubin and Mr. Cobb clear. After all, if I were under siege by an unknown number of these Shadow Creatures, I would say a room full of bright light would be the perfect place to bunker down.

Our intent had been for Marcus to open the door to the light room, with myself minding the store as a pair of eyes at the back. Clearly I haven’t learned from the many books I’ve read where heroes, hunters, and protagonists alike get ambushed from something hiding on the ceiling, because that’s precisely what happened: one moment I was raising my flashlight to sweep the shop, the next I’m being shoved backward by Marcus and watching as he falls to the floor. His leg, which was already in rough shape from our previous fights that evening, made...a decidedly unpleasant sound as he connected with the floor. 

I’m only mostly ashamed to admit that I rushed in rather thoughtlessly after that, some foolish part of me thinking I could defend Marcus with naught but a particularly heavy flashlight. It didn’t seem to do much damage save for more of that rippling, and I promptly put some distance between myself and it once it became clear that Marcus was going to try and get up to fight again. In short order, I heard the door to the back room open, the sounds of a struggle, a worrying crunch, and the report of a firearm. Spurred into action by the latter, and trying to prevent any further harm, I located the nearest lightswitch and raced towards it. As my hand flicked the switch, a tendril of darkness speared through it. Not as bad as it could have been, perhaps, and I was more concerned with the increase in reverb--two waves, which met and caused some...resistance. Mr. Stubin shot that spot, and the creature folded under that tension. It slipped quickly under the counter with the clatter of a coin.

The next several moments were a blur of motion and weariness. Marcus and I realized when we went to burn the coin that I’d jostled his lighter loose in dragging him from the Crossroads; fortunately, Mr. Cobb had a box of matches, and we disposed of it accordingly. Mr. Cobb likewise called an ambulance for Mr. Stubin, whereas Marcus and I limped our way back to the safehouse, but only after I promised to return to help Mr. Cobb keep vigil over his still-lurching coin, which he refused to part with.

I helped Marcus reset his leg. He needs rest, more than anything, but he should be fine. I believe his condition affords him a measure of healing, but I’m not entirely certain; another question to ask him...whenever it becomes an appropriate time to interrogate my brother about that.

Levi had sent me an email two hours prior with urgency--we were to return to the Eyrie as quickly as we could, pending the completion of our assignment. Once I’d sent him a reply assuring him we’d do just that, I left Marcus to rest, then returned to Mr. Cobb’s furniture store. He was kind enough to offer me a beer, despite the fact it was only 5:20 in the morning local time. The time passed with little more than our two pairs of eyes sitting in silence, nursing wounds and beers alike as the coin and the orb of shadow around it shuddered and lurched, trying in vain to free itself.

At 6:30 local time, the orb shuddered once more, then fell back into itself, becoming a coin. We tapped a copper nail into it; with each hit the coin shuddered and seemed to grow...lighter. Brighter, even.

And then it was done. Almost anticlimactic, were it not for all that came before.  

Convincing Mr. Stubin to come with us to the Eyrie was less of an ordeal than getting past hospital security. From there it was a matter of several uneventful- if awkward- days of travel before we were within Westboro and the eyes of my family crest again.

Our family crest; Marcus is to be considered now. I hope.

[End of Part 2.]

-Arden ⊙ Multa pars, una veritas.

[lumsel]

TF2 is a cutting parody of Overwatch and I can prove it

And when I say parody, I don’t mean it as in one of those “Minecraft Parodies” you see on the youtubes where they switch some lyrics around and call it a day without really commenting on the source material, I mean it as in TF2 is a biting deconstruction of Overwatch and everything it represents. Now I’m sure you have all sorts of questions involving release dates and, I dunno, logic, but bear with me here for a moment because this shit runs deep:

Overwatch’s characters have a diverse range of origins and personalities, presented as the best of the best from all over the world. Artists, Innovators, Heroes, Overwatch lets you play as great people who fight for great causes. Granted, there’s a bit of some weird dissonance between how they act and how they play, we’ve all made jokes about how weirdly cheerful Mei is about killing people, but overall they’re just a bunch of lovable goofs. Hell, even the so-called bad guys are impossible to hate, because they just have so much personality baked into them.

TF2′s cast is comprised of foolish, incompetent mercenaries, who are explicitly not the best of the best but rather a bunch of idiots the Administrator got to fight her pointless battles without any motivations beyond the money they earn. They aren’t lovable; entertaining to be sure, but they aren’t exactly the kinds of folks you’d sit down and have a beer with. Examining them at an individual level reveals further criticisms:

The Soldier’s name is a clear reference to the Overwatch hero Soldier 76, and further comparisons can be made from there. Soldier 76 is a disgraced war vet who takes the world into his own hands, travelling the world to fight evils and save people. The Soldier amps it up to 11; a mentally ill civilian who becomes convinced he is fighting Nazis in a war that ended years ago, and is in actuality blowing up innocents. No one man can understand the complexities of worldly conflicts enough to actively fight for the “right side” without screwing everything up, and the Soldier personifies this notion to an extreme, portrayed as not only insane but also highly jingoistic, alluding to an undercurrent of american exceptionalism that exists in 76′s All-American Hero stylings.

Pyro is a take on Bastion. They’re both unintelligible and gender-indeterminate cuties who retain their innocence in a cruel and brutal environment. Of course, Bastion’s dissonance between its purpose and its personality is played for drama, for how tragic it is that this adorable robot is built only to kill. The Pyro, by contrast, portrays innocence in spite of violence as twisted. Compare their promotional shorts: Bastion’s ends with it deciding against its original purpose (and the purpose it serves in gameplay) and exiling itself to the forest to care for a cute bird, while the Pyro’s portrays the violence and innocence as a symbiotic relationship, showing that they hallucinate the carnage they cause as spreading love and cheer. TF2 tells us that the innocence of a DPS character in a shooter is not endearing but terrifying, because the two aspects cannot coexist without extreme cognitive dissonance. The Pyro can delight in violence because, in their limited understanding of the world, they see violence as delightful.

The Medic lampoons Mercy and to a lesser extent every support character in Overwatch. There is something faintly hypocritical about a character claiming to want to help people as they serve as an accomplice to a violent, bloody war effort. Mercy may rarely score any kills herself, but she enables the continued destruction caused by every combatant she heals. The Medic puts up no such pretense of being a good person, he loves the pain and violence perhaps more than his compatriots who actively dole it out. He is no harmless doctor, he is as great a threat as the men with guns, if not even more dangerous - and he doesn’t even have a damage boost on his medigun. The Medic's habit of experimenting on his teammates for shits and giggles is, too, a joke about Mercy, this time referring to her canon involvement in turning Genji and Reaper into killing machines. 

The Sniper is, like Roadhog, an Australian who is actually a New Zealander who sounds like nothing like either. I don’t have anything insightful to say here, I just think it’s funny.

But the one thing that binds them - the one thing they have in common? They are all sadistic assholes. Every character has a cackling, evil laugh they let out when they’re on a kill streak, they all bask in the glory of slaughter unashamedly and unabashedly - they are guns for hire, after all. In a way, they aren’t so different to the Overwatch cast in this respect; even the bright and peppy tracer has a host of voicelines cheerily mocking the people she has just murdered with her twin pistols. But what TF2 does differently is make this obvious. The nine classes have no purpose in gameplay beyond causing and enabling murder, and rather than distract you from this fact with charming personalities, it lets you pity them as the mean, cruel bastards that they are. These are no “heroes” to be looked up to, they are the waste product of a world better than them.

Overwatch’s map design is beautiful, to be sure, with a clean, futuristic aesthetic and a wide diversity of metropolitan locales to explore. But when you think about it, the levels don’t make a whole lot of sense. The payload maps are all cities that tend to have only one road in them, they’re peppered with hazardous falls despite being mostly innocuous metropolitan areas, and the architecture is often questionable at best. While some maps have a clear goal that the two teams are fighting over, i.e. Volskaya’s factory, some are just places where a fight is happening for no reason. Illios is the perfect example, you go to a well, a lighthouse and an excavation site but there’s nothing to be won in any of the areas. Of course, asking “why are we fighting here” was a mug’s game to begin with - the gameplay in is non-canon, after all.

TF2′s map design is specifically engineered to draw attention to its own senselessness.  The payload tracks aren’t roads, they’re literal tracks, on the ground, which just happen to lead directly to the enemy team’s giant stockpile of explosive barrels. Control points aren’t just game abstractions, they’re giant metal discs on the ground, marked out with hazard tape and set up to display a giant holographic team emblem. One place where they differ is TF2 is not content to allow a map to have no valuable resource in it to be fighting over, even when said dedication raises more questions than it answers. That granary isn’t just a granary, it’s actually concealing a secret spy base. The lumberyard? Secret spy base. Hydroelectric plant, which actually might be tactically advantageous to own? ALSO A SECRET SPY BASE! “Secret spy base” is the punchline to every map’s visual narrative, and serves as a challenge to the philosophy of Overwatch’s design, by implying that those innocuous locales you visit, all those wells and lighthouses, they were actually just secret spy bases this whole time.

Even the art direction in OW’s fascination with a vaguely utopic golden age is reflected in TF2′s usage of idealised 60′s-ea illustration as a clear inspiration. The visual language utilised by a people who were proud of the world that they shaped, despite the festering problems lurking deep within it, is perfect for the ugliness of the TF2 universe. The painterly, illustrative style isn’t used for white picket fences and well-kept lawns, but ramshackle shacks, industrial monstrosities and machines of war. This is no better time nor a better place, it is a war. It is blood and gore and fire and pain and all the worst parts of humanity condensed into bite sized 10 minute matches.

And the war they fight is pointless. Not pointless in the sense that it is non-canon, but that it is canon and yet it still means nothing. It’s a pitiable battle between two brothers over their ancient, useless gravel estate, with all the lasers and rockets only existing to claim more useless gravel. The fights don’t mean anything, the story isn’t important, and the resources aren’t world-changing, they’re just pointless bloodshed for pointless rewards, a hauntingly accurate summation of the philosophy of a competitive shooter.

Overwatch’s world is one like our own, but... different. Set in a fantastic and wonderful future, it portrays a world coming off of the heels of a great robot war. It is populated by robots called omnics, who are either a metaphor for all marginalised groups ever or evil badguy robots depending on the what the writers need right now. In addition, Overwatch likes to add it’s own additional spice to real world locales: South Korea is threatened by a giant badguy robot and has hired professional gamers to fight it, Australia has been devastated in a nuclear holocaust and is now a desolate wasteland, and The Moon has recently been overthrown by sentient gorillas(?) who now rule its colonies. It’s all a bit silly, to be sure, but it’s made with love, and it’s all just so earnest you can’t help but love it back.

In the TF2 community, there is some debate over whether or not Abraham Lincoln inventing stairs as an alternative to the rocket jump is canon information or not. What is definitely canon, however, is that spaceflight was invented in 1900, New Zealand is a once legendary sunken metropolis destroyed by an incompetent scientist, and Amelia Earhart was a hotdog mascot. The world isn’t just quirky, it’s gonzo, with ghosts and charismatic war profiteers and rocks that radiate pure intelligence all being mentioned in the same sentence with nary a wink. 

You can tell TF2′s lead, Robin Walker, was an Australian man angry about the nation’s treatment in Overwatch, because in TF2 Australia is a world leader inventing all of the major technologies in the setting and is the main catalyst for most of the world’s politics. Tellingly, you never actually go to Australia in-game, because the conflict that TF2 portrays is as stated earlier completely removed from anything remotely important in the setting. Of course, Australia is also said to be populated entirely by idiots who get in barfights all the time and choose their king by boxing with kangaroos because if there’s one thing that TF2 avoids like the plague it’s the genuine idealism that Overwatch so loves.

And Overwatch’s incredible technology levels, showing the world of 60 years from now being populated by megastructures, holograms and hovercars, is parodied with the setting of TF2 having all the same, but 60 years into the past. Because Australium, you see. The quaint interpretation of global politics is now extended into full-on alternate history wherein the Space Race was just the US and Russia feebly attempting to measure up to Australia’s impossible standards and Musician Tom Jones is murdered by the Soldier for being his wizard ex-roommate’s new best friend. It shows the inherent arrogance OW painting its own picture of what the world is like by painting that picture onto the past instead of the future, allowing us to immediately understand the contrast between how the authors portray the world and how it actually was - and letting us laugh at just how different the two really are.

This theory would be completely perfect with no holes in it whatsoever, were it not for one key issue: TF2 came out seven years before Overwatch was announced.

There is only one explanation for this: this is a case of analogous evolution where the Overwatch team made many of the same gameplay decisions as the TF2 team but TF2 understood the absurdity of said gameplay and decided to emphasise it whereas Overwatch elected to ignore it and justify its fiction through supplemental material, combined with TF2 actively parodying tropes that predate both games that Overwatch somewhat coincidentally indulges in due to the developers of one intending a dark satirical tone and the developers of the other trying for something more optimistic TF2 was engineered by Valve at some point in the future and sent back in time like a videogame terminator to destroy Overwatch before it was ever born in order to ensure CSGO’s dominance in the competitive PC shooter field. Valve failed to take the key moral lesson away from the first Terminator movie, however - any endeavor involving time travel is doomed to fail from the start, as whatever action you take has always been taken and the past cannot be changed. Just like Robot Arnold Schwarzenegger, TF2 not only failed to prevent Overwatch’s existence, it ultimately proved instrumental in the game’s conception when the spark of inspiration (here representing Kyle Reese) made sweet, sweet love to Jeff Kaplan’s brain before dying in a dynamite explosion. For shame, Valve. I thought you would have learned from Skynet’s mistakes.

[zodiac-enthusiasts]

Pisces Personality | 18 Facts About Pisces@media only screen and (min-width: 1000px) and (max-width: 5000px){body.kc-css-system .kc-css-881842{width: 9.7%;}body.kc-css-system .kc-css-2492236{width: 80.29%;}body.kc-css-system .kc-css-3563391{width: 9.99%;}}body.kc-css-system .kc-css-2492236{background: #f5f5f5;margin-top: 30px;margin-bottom: 30px;padding: 30px 30px 30px 30px;border: 1px solid #e8e8e8;border-radius: 10px 10px 10px 10px;}body.kc-css-system .kc-css-334339 ,body.kc-css-system .kc-css-334339 p{color: #414549;font-family: Open Sans;font-size: 18px;line-height: 2em;} Pisces Personality The Pisces Personality is based on the element of water which is governed by the mystic Neptune. This sign is extremely receptive, polite, compassionate and supportive. As we did with Scorpio, we must explore and investigate to discover the depths of this water sign. The feelings of Pisces dig very deep. A changing nature gives Pisces adaptable and unifying energy. Sensitive people are like the water which flows smoothly downstream, following the current around the rocks and the obstacles of its path.   Compassionate Pisces is compassionate and feel for others in wanting to help them however they can. Many of us would speak before hearing out what others have to say but compassionate Pisces does the opposite. Pisces will do his utmost to help anyone in any way he can. Usually, he would listen to what others have to say before he expresses his opinion. Pisces feel sympathy and sorrow for another who face misfortune in life.  Pisces is driven with a strong desire to alleviate the suffer ing.   Sympathetic Pisces feel for the ones he loves. He is ready to put others first before his personal needs. He feels sympathy for everyone who has no one else to look after them. Pisces will try to help them with whatever he can. Pisces would freely take others problems and burdens over his shoulder and make it his own matter to solve. He would listen quietly with his heart to all their troubles and silently ease their pain.   Loving Pisces is filled with love and positive energy. Pisces is like the beam of light that shines brightly that attracts the goodhearted and trustworthy people close to him. Typical Pisces tends to do what he loves and won’t listen to anyone else. No matter what others think of Pisces he will never stop loving others. His primary aim in life would be to help others no matter what everyone thinks.   Altruist Typical Pisces give and share of love what belongs to each without hesitation. He's a kind heart and never hesitates to make charitable gestures. Pisces doesn’t expect anything back from the people he helps instead he will respond to them kindly. Many would think he's foolish, but in the end, Pisces will show everyone the real character of a compassionate and kind person. The generous acts of Pisces are endless starting from helping to volunteering. Pisces tries not to become materialistic because that would be the end of who he really is.   Dreams Pisces dreams of a better world every day of his life. There isn’t a single moment that he wouldn’t try to make the world a better place for all mankind. Pisces would usually come up with ideas to bring peace to all humans. Pisces is able to frequently communicate his peaceful ideas to people he trusts and is able to share his humble heart with them.   Intuitive Only a pure-hearten person would easily have psychic ability. Pisces would stand by his friends who will need his help and "read" their mind and heart. Pisces is an excellent listener and observer who has the intuitive mind to foresee or predict what may happen in a short future. Intuition will be the inner voice for Pisces helping him to pick up on clues around others and use the information gathered to make approximate predictions.   Fantasy Personality Photo by Andres Iga on Unsplash Usually, Pisces seems to be disconnected from the real world. He seems to be in a fantasy world for some time. Pisces life is mostly based on beliefs rather than significant facts. The reality he lives is preferably a pure fantasy. Usually, when Pisces friends talk about the real world, Pisces seems to get lost, but will not admit it and so he will pretend to agree or will slightly disagree.   Sensitive Pisces usually struggle to focus properly on the task when having to handle many things in one moment. He seems to become tense and nervous therefore stress will start to build up. He will lose concentration and be less productive. When Pisces is put into a test, he's likely to perform very poorly. Consequently, he hates it being placed under pressure.   Into Arts Pisces may not be a great artist, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t like it. Pisces is very connected to the world of arts. Whether he's attending a musical or concert or visiting an art gallery, he will highly appreciate all sort of arts. Pisces finds that expressions of creativity stir up his emotions.   Dance & Music Either one will do just fine for Pisces when he feels stressed or emotional. Highly sensitive Pisces demands some silence when he's stressed out. Sometimes he favors slow pace music with low volume. Occasionally he starts dancing to cool down from his daily stress. Music has to be specific to his liking at that particular moment. Music shouldn’t be too loud or too quiet like hard rock or classic for example. Dancing or singing, for instance, does really well for relaxation to sensitive Pisces, so, nothing is separating him from his personal habits.   Poetry Writing Pisces may stay for a long time in some darkroom or isolated from friends and family. His intentions being alone is to find his inner peace by writing whatever artistic creative comes through his mind, usually its poetry or prose. Through poetry and prose, Pisces will be able to express his sensitive feelings and how he feels about himself in connection with the world in that particular moment.   Memory Pisces is born with the great natural ability to have photographic memories for almost everything. His emotional character allows him to remember even the saddest moments he has been through in life. Very often Pisces is seen telling others stories from the past usually comparing it with the present. Pisces typically does this to show others the importance of time change and how people change with time in years.   Secretive Pisces could be secretive because he has something embarrassing to hide from others. Generally, it is something so sad that it would be considered too serious for others to know the truth. Usually, it’s something from the past. Pisces does not want to show others who he indeed is. Very often Pisces will be shy avoiding eye contact and physical intimacy. His private life is sealed inside him and will only open to anyone but to those who he trusts the most.   Common Sense If we refer to Pisces as the person who has the collective knowledge about many things, then we would think the level of his belief. For Pisces, the perception of reality isn’t mature enough. It’s why Pisces can’t distinguish the real from unreal so he will create a shallow perspective of the world, mostly based on his beliefs rather than essential facts.   Satire Pisces hates it when people laugh at him or when he's taken for a fool. Usually, he won't react to provocations but will hold the rage inside him. If the boiling point is reached then Pisces will respond by being satiric and laugh back. Sometimes he ends up insulting them or the worst he will use force to let them know that Pisces isn’t someone that anyone can mess with.   Multi-Talented Pisces is exceptional with some unusual talents capable of handling different tasks. Being multi-talented has its disadvantages for Pisces. His focus can be spread into many things he hardly knows 100%, but this won’t stop Pisces becoming valuable. The ability to understand more comes naturally to Pisces. Pisces is a curious person ever since he was young. Typical Pisces has strong communications skills and will assist others with his talents in many ways.   Flexible Pisces is known to be a very flexible person who copes in change regardless of all different circumstances and will think about how to solve various problems and common life issues in a matter of a moment. Pisces knows that new challenges will require new skills so he will become more flexible to handle each situation.   Good Sense Of Humor Although Pisces is shy from time to time, he's still very welcomed by friends. Pisces is good at keeping friends happy with good humor while sharing good times together. Pisces jokes and sense of humor are never out of line. It's his primary objective to get amused not refused when he's among friends.

[xxsiriuslupinxx-blog]

He’s An Idiot. (A Hobbit Oneshot)

Author: SongByrd

Fandom: The Hobbit. 

Characters: Mostly everyone from the Hobbit

"Why is he bleeding?" Thorin queers. He just entered the scene. His head roams from side to side looking for the culprit. If not the culprit than someone who will answer his amused question.

"Because he's an idiot." 

Balin supplies leaning back against one of the trees that swarm the river bank. He examines his nails as though this is a common question. Based off of the behavior of the past few days it's not surprising.

"I didn't know that idiocy caused people to just start spontaneously bleeding from the nose." Gandalf muses; clutching his staff to he chest and sporting a far-off look in his eyes.

"I think it's a new phenomenon." Fili guffaws. "You had it coming Kili." He shrugs. Kili is just sitting on the ground, compressing his nose, stunned. He didn't think that, that was a possible outcome.

My light-set feet hardly give me away, normally. This is not a normal time though. Each squelch magnifies the magnitude of fury that, before this happened I would have denied was even possible. Least of all for me! My chest heaves rage fully. My wretched eyes are betraying me as they start to leak. (Hobbits do not cry).  My mouth is white from lack of blood supply and how much force they're under. Tense shoulders creep their way up towards ears. Hands are shaking, so they are then balled into fist to end that. The ground quakes as I stomp my hairy pads across the earthy sand morphing into the spongy, mulch-ous forest floor. My hair dripping and a shade or two darker as it is currently drenched with water. I angrily thwack away the low-hanging pine tree branch from my face. (In hindsight not a good idea as I then nurse my pour, abused hand). My thunderous steps lead me away from the brothers. Especially Kili. I have been nice… enough. These blundering, well, fools is too harsh. These blundering people I've had to deal with for three days are driving me past the point of insanity. The first sign was when I agreed to accompany them three days, seven hours, thirty-eight minuets, and two seconds ago. That was when these rabble-rousers have intruded -Oh pardon me- introduced themselves to me.

It was a violet hued rose-gold evening. Stars were flickering into existence. Wind brushed the hills and swayed the trees when one barged in as though he possessed my own wonderfully warm hobbit-hole and expected me to treat him as a guest. I, of course, stiltedly obliged. What else was I to do? Thorin- as he introduced himself to be- was told to look for a special mark on a certain door in my area, and I had heard from Gandalf, the friendly wizard, earlier that day not at that time knowing that he was the one who called all the oddities to my den. My eyelids furiously blinked of their own accord and simultaiously my mouth gaped with as much grace as a fish. My forehead needed ironing as confusion clouded my squinted eyes. Thorin brushed past me accepting my lack of articulation as awe. My confoundedness did not clear any time soon because just when I had retrieved my tongue another dwarf bumbled in. These other creatures clambered into my home slowly and filled out my table and chairs. As they sat down the seats squeaked and scraped with indignation, and with each and every merry pound of their meaty fists the table ominously rattled and quivered signifying it's emanate demise.

I do not consider myself an outrageous extrovert, but on the other hand, I do not count myself an anti-social introvert either. Thus, I like company. I enjoy throwing festivities, but only when I arrange it. If nothing else, I want to have knowledge that someone is coming -much less someones. These dwarves not only forsook the civility of warning the host of possible host-age, but the supplying of sustenance as well.

They took -excuse me- scarfed down my sweet, delicious, hard-earned sesame cakes. My thick, hickory-smoked sausages were inhaled without a second thought. The various cheeses I had cultivated were fair game. My mead, rum, and other beverages were dwindled and drained as though second nature. For Bombur, which I am sure is what the fat one is called, it very well may be. After a time -meaning the cavernous stomachs were filled- Gandalf enlightened the entire party that I, Bilbo Baggins, am to be their robber. I was stunned and said no; which apparently equaled yes in my shell-shocked mind, and that lead me to scampering across the plains of my home. I abandoned my refuge to quench my adventurous thirst. I have considered myself, in the past, clever. Clever: not wise. Which leads me to my present state of mind.

The first one I have grieved over previously. In fact it was that peaceful-before-the-storm evening. The infraction was the inability to R.S.V.P; that in itself is not a horrendous habit to cultivate. You could almost cast it into a positive light, as though it helps you keep your house in order. Not only did they come over uninvited, they also relinquished me of my own food and drink. At least they clean up after themselves. On the other hand they gave me a heart attack while doing so. Plates, cups, and forks are not meant to fly.

The second one I found out on the first day of our "adventure". I was denied my second breakfast. The only one who was empathetic to me was Bombur. As a hobbit I need only a few things. A nice, clean, warm, homely hole -which I sacrificed- a supply of entertainment -which I currently have either through Kili and Fili or through the dwarves singing- and food. I asked Thorin and he responded very business-like, not unkindly, "It is a waste of resources that we will later need." For him it was business. For Hobbits? It's starvation plain and simple. One cannot in good conscious and health skip second breakfast. I have already deemed myself mad though. The Took side of my lineage possessed my mind while I dawdled by the fireplace mantle that morning. Those fair, few seconds I hithered and dithered were seconds in which I was taken advantage of. It was of mine-own conscious that wronged me, but one-one needs to know.

The third and final straw was a handkerchief, or lack there-of. That dreadful morning I found that note left behind for me was the start of my undoing. I rushed around and out the door like a nincompoop without a change of clothes, money , or even a handkerchief. How I could have made such an egregious oversight I don't know. Because I was feeling so fretful about being left behind I think it acceptable that I left my stuff at my home. The dwarves, who are trying to reclaim their home, don't -in my opinion- have that excuse. They don't have any handkerchiefs. When they need to wipe something it would be wiped off unto whatever was in reach. A coat, blanket, sleeve, neighbor -in hind sight that was mainly Kili and Fili as they found that funny and they were the youngest. I was minding my business. Staring at the river that was rippling along side our troop. Trying to keep myself in check. The boisterous brothers -as I prefer to call them- were goofing off as normal. When, out of nowhere, I. Was. Pushed. Into. The. River. A little fact about Hobbits? They. Cannot. Swim. I was lucky this lethargic body of water was also shallow. Unlike Kili and Fili's grave is going to be. I am not even going to put them into separate graves. They don't deserve that.

I contemplate what has lead me to such a tizzy: In each of the days and night of which our begrudging alliance grows so does our familiarity of each others habits. Whether that is a good or bad thing? They jury is still out. For example, Kili and Fili are the two jokesters and jesters. They both lighten the mood, but which of the two is most funny? The world will never know; I do so wish that they would sort it out instead of dueling each other with pranks. Mainly because I am the innocent victim of their squabbles. Bombur, as I mentioned earlier, is … "thick-boned". He is always the one trailing behind, but not an enormously huge length. There are many other dwarves to be mentioned, but I am not well acquainted with them. One of the only things I am beginning to understand is that dwarves are of a determined and persistent race. They may look slow and cumbersome, but they can march. Not only am I being introduced to some of the dwarves subtle -if you can call it that- nuances, but to their negative quirks as well. These quirks have happened over the course of our time together. I am thrown back to what they where and when they happened.

"YO- YOU BUFFOONS! I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU JUST pushed me into the river." My voice drops to a deadly whisper. The brother's faces echo each other's fear and apprehension. Foolish, Tookish-ness is what got me into this mess. Clear-headed, concise Baggins is what will get me out. "I have kept quiet when you turned your harmless banter into hurtful derogatory remarks about me. My size, my weight. My weight for my size. I have helped as much as I could with least amount of external complaining as possible. I let you man-handle my dishes, my chairs, my table. But no more. You will respect me as a legitimate part of your group. I did not have to sign on. I could have left your bundle off at thirteen, but did I? No. No I did not. I may not be used to this kind of lifestyle, In fact I will freely admit that, but I would like to think that I have adjusted quite well if I do say so myself." I somehow finish off coolly. Throughout the entire monologue I remained aloof. How? I genuinely don't know. Then Kili had to speak.

" You're complaining now, so that kind-of contradicts everything you just said." Kili admonishes while waggling a finger at me. I freeze for a moment. Everything happens in a blur. A dream. The peaceful bubble that cold indifference creates burst. I run forward. My fist, which I didn't notice had formed in the first place, flies. My Baggins side screams in horror while my Took side congratulates me. Who knew enacting my Took side would feel so good?

[hiruma-musouka]

soulmates see color (IzuMito)

Happy late birthday @elenathehun​.  I wrote IzuMito like you wanted ^.^  💕 

(AO3 link - contains all author notes)

This is fucking ridiculous.

Izuna drags a hand down his face, closing his eyes to the massive warehouse full of various merchandise, and sincerely regrets asking his father for this mission. He certainly hadn't wanted to accompany Uncle Kenrou's group to the western desert with his brother (of all miserable places), but he also hadn't realized at the time that he'd have to track this group of thieves south and east to cut over nearly the entirety of Hi no Kuni, sneak past patrols from several different clans (most of whom would love to kill him), and then curve back upwards to stop within kunai-throwing distance of the Yu no Kuni border.

And now he's finally caught up to his quarry, except they've already sold his client's priceless (and pointless) trinket to a merchant.

A very successful merchant.

One who possess an unnecessarily large stock in his opinion and is either the most disorganized and eclectic woman Izuna's ever come across or who has evidently met her soulmate and decided afterwards to implement a color-based organizational scheme among her products.

Which makes this night so much better given that to him everything just looks like a mass of yellows and grays with a scattering of blues.

What kind of inconsiderate, inefficient, and short-sighted merchant organizes their warehouse by color!? Yes, yes, there are obviously individual groupings of similar items among each greater section - furniture with furniture, rugs with rugs, jewelry with jewelry - but at least seventy percent of the average population is color impaired in some way at any one point in time! How the hell does she stay in business? Does Akiyama only hire workers who can see in full color?

... No. No that would be foolish, Izuna realizes, silently drumming his fingers on his sword hilt. Akiyama didn't establish a large mercantile network by vastly limiting her employee base. If her merchandise is organized by primary color after it's purchased, and all the employees know the organizational scheme, then items wouldn't need to be rigorously labeled for color as long as there's at least one full-sighted staff member who can run checks that the system is being maintained.

Theoretically, it might shave time off in day-to-day affairs. If time is money, that's obviously a benefit from Akiyama's perspective.

This, of course, does not change the fact that Izuna doesn't know the warehouse's system and thus can not easily rule out any areas. He also can't afford to genjutsu one of the workers to fetch it for him because his client wants the theft kept as quiet as possible which means any potential evidence of his presence is a bad idea. And he has to find it tonight because while he has confirmation that one of Akiyama's employees purchased it five hours ago, he has no idea how long it takes this branch to process items.

"A brilliant emerald in a silver setting," Izuna mutters, eyes darting from one end of the building to another. Silver's easy enough, he knows he sees that in the same shade as his matched parents, but emeralds are supposed to be green and green is one of the most widely common problem colors. He has no idea what green actually looks like to soul-matched people, but...

'Red for running blood

Pink for sakura blooming

Orange for mikan

Yellow for the sun

Green for healthy, growing grass...'

Izuna may or may not pout like he's ten-years-old again as he mentally double-checks part of the color haiku. Grass under a summer sun always appears to be a yellow or gray-yellow to him. Which is a problem because over half of the contents of this room are in some variation of yellow!

He resists the urge to sigh and makes his way to the right. He'll need to run a systematic grid search to make sure he doesn't miss the pendant given its small size. At least he can rule out anything that's colored an intense blue. Judging from past experience, those items have to be either legitimately blue or some shade of purple.

... This would be a lot easier if he could afford to use a brighter light.

( It's going to be so very satisfying when he turns those thieves in for their bounty on top of his mission pay. He's positive they must have a bounty among the civilians: he can't be the only person they've angered if they've successfully robbed a noblewoman while being incompetent enough to still get noticed. )

.

.

Izuna finally finds the uselessly overpriced bauble at around four in the morning. He's tired, cranky, twitchy from dodging random guard checks, and suffering a horrendous headache both from straining to see details in low-light and from frequently flicking his sharingan on and off for better night vision.

The palm-sized pendant really doesn't look impressive enough to be worth this hassle, if he's honest. He's aware it must be very expensive considering the size of the gemstone and the mission fee his client is willing to pay for its retrieval, but from a purely aesthetic point of view Izuna can barely think of anything to recommend it. The emerald looks like solidified incense ash to him even if the silver is molded in an admittedly elegant, antique design.

But a mission is a mission and his is finally done. He even has a little time left before his family starts worrying, which means he has the opportunity to do something for himself.

Maybe he'll take the scenic route back after disposing of the thieves who have lingered nearby. He's never seen the ocean before.

.

.

"We dead. We so dead."

"Shut yer mouth and keep moving! We'll just— we'll put 'er in the pit with the others and be done with it! Nobody's gonna dig up all of those bodies just looking for one girl."

"She got a devil's hair, Taro, a devil's! Ain't seen nothing like it, but y'know the stories. Only the Uzumaki got that 'round these parts." Masaharu starts breathing harder, eyes darting around the inn, frantic mania building under the surface as he searches the shadows of the room. "They catch spirits with glowing chains and eat 'em alive. They know things - know how to write down stuff, make all kinds of things happen. Don't even need words! Just squiggles and paper and—"

"MASA!" Taro snaps, punching his friend firmly in the shoulder. Masa's eyes dart back to his, jerked out of his high pitched rambling. "She's got buns. It's a hairstyle. There isn't anything devilish about it. Now grab that man—" he pointed towards a dead fisherman with blue-tinged skin, bloodshot eyes, and a mouth covered in vomit "—and start getting 'em all on the damn cart. We've gotta get all these folks buried before we can leave, you know that."

"It ain't the style, Taro," Masaharu whispers, fearful as a child. "It the color. It like, like blood Taro. It look like blood and flowers. 'Taint natural."

Of course it's the color, Taro curses internally. Damn Masa's useless soulmate. She met the man, put all these stories in the poor fool's head, and then up and got herself a wasting sickness months later instead of sticking around to deal the results of her messing with her man's brain.

"Listen. Masa," Taro says reassuringly, shaking the idiot's shoulder until he looks at him. "I don't know what color you're seeing, but it's just light colored hair, alright? Look at 'er," he says, waving towards the inn's stairs where the visiting teen had collapsed earlier, sprawled out on the last steps in a simple dress like any other village girl. "She isn't going to do anything. We'll bury them all and be done with it alright?"

Masaharu gulps. "It bad luck to bury the livin', Taro."

"Hey, hey," he scolds, when Masa's attention wanders back to the girl. "She's just a bit slow to die, alright? Some people just die hard, that's all. You heard what those shinobi told us: the poison's fatal, alright? She'll be dead before long just like the rest."

Masaharu hesitates, wringing his sleeves and looking around the inn at all the corpses, each crumbled to the floor wherever they'd been standing when the poison in Taro's pipe smoke had triggered the stuff they'd drunk . "Don't seem right, ta me. It just don't seem right..."

"Well right doesn't keep food in our bellies, Masa, and there isn't any work but what the shinobi wanted. I don't much like it myself, but I'm not gonna let you and me suffer a slow death." Masaharu shudders at the idea and Taro gives him a grim smile and a friendly pat. "Now, have I let you down? Left you behind before even when I maybe should've?"

"No. You're a good friend."

"Right you are. And you're the same to me. So you get the others on the cart, and if it bothers you so much, I'll deal with the girl myself, alright? Alright. Now speed it up, that shinobi was clear about not getting anything till the job is done." He shoves Masa off towards the other bodies and heads to the stairs.

Maybe now they'll actually get somewhere quickly if Masa can just keep focused. He loves the idiot but damn if his brain isn't frustrating occasionally. If the girl just hadn't stopped by earlier today to check in, they'd have had the entire place clear by now.

Taro slows as he approaches the teenager, slipping a hand into his kimono warily and grabbing the shortened fukiya and darts that the shinobi had handed over alongside the poisons. Masa is damn superstitious and probably overreacting, but then again he might not be. The older man always sees things very simply, but sometimes that means he gets straight to the important point without getting fooled by distractions he doesn't understand. Sometimes Masa really is right when his stubborn brain says 'danger', and Taro would be a moron himself if he didn't at least consider it.

And here... well, the girl likely isn't a devil - Taro's mostly sure devils don't get themselves poisoned by normal folks hired for coin - but Masa's right that there's something off about the young woman.

For starters, she actually isn't dead. Which stands out a lot given that the two of them had just spent twenty minutes hauling the bodies of other people who had all died damn near immediately. In addition, now that he's seeing her properly, it looks like he was maybe exaggerating a bit when he assured Masa that the girl is just dying hard. She doesn't much look like she's moving on to the afterlife.

In fact... if anything... Taro would say she looks like she's crawling her way back.

Taro stops a few feet away, staring warily as the teen stirs, eyes shifting under their lids. He glances over her, looking at the dark golden hair buns, the bluish diamond in the middle of her forehead, the pale skin, the cream yukata, the simple sandals...

She's a pretty one, Taro realizes, suspicion dawning as he takes half a step further back, bringing up the fukiya to his lips as she cracks open her eyelids, squinting woozily up at the ceiling with dark colored eyes. She's a pretty one, of marriageable age, with no man accompanying her, and traveling alone... but she was comfortable and composed and rock-solid confident.

The woman's lips pull tight the slightest bit and if he hadn't been getting a little unnerved himself, Taro probably would have missed when she abruptly rolled and tried to shove herself up with an arm. As is, his first dart only grazes her neck and if she hadn't stumbled from the rigged smoke she'd inhaled earlier, he wouldn't have had the chance to reload and fire another.

The girl yanks the poisoned dart out of the meat of her shoulder without a second of hesitation and sends him such a furiously unyielding look through the nauseous tinge to her face that even though she starts to collapse, Taro hurries and hits her with another dart as well.

The girl hits the floor with a muffled thump, and Taro darts a look over his shoulder to check for Masaharu. Luckily the other man is currently on one of his trips outside so there won't be any additional freaking out over this.

Not that it wouldn't be deserved, Taro thinks, knuckles tight around the fukiya as he resists the urge to rub his worn omamori charm between his fingers for good luck. That girl definitely isn't normal after all.

Something dark starts to spread out on either side of the diamond on the girl's forehead. It's colored like spilled ink or black bruising or seeping poison depending on which of the now paranoid voices in his head Taro listens to, and its shape changes as it slowly crawls across the girl's skin. For brief moments Taro swears he can see bits and pieces of words in the messy lines forming on the teen's face - as if a sentence of old calligraphy had been stretched and squeezed and then came to life as writhing worms so that a secret language could inch itself across her pale face.

It's just as unnatural as Masaharu swore she was, and with gritted teeth Taro hauls her up on his shoulder and swiftly makes his way to the cart.

He's not sure he believes in devils or curses, but right now the other possibility is shinobi nonsense and that's just as dangerous and bizarre.

They'll be better off getting done and then getting gone.

.

.

The thieves' heads had not been as valuable as Izuna had hoped for, but at least the ocean is living up to its reputation.

He kicks his foot idly as he lounges on a high branch, watching the waves ebb and flow. The tree is tall enough to provide a good view of the sprawling shoreline while still hiding him in its shrouding canopy, and there's a wind coming through that edges the temperature over from unpleasantly humid into tolerable. The sea shines under the setting sun, glimmering off blue waters as far as the eye can see and for a brief moment Izuna activates his sharingan, memorizing it for later.

The trip here is a nice variation in routine, Izuna thinks, eyes drifting over yellow-white sand and up to the tree line where summer boughs are heavy with dull brown and murky yellow leaves. The sight wouldn't be enough by itself to be worth the long travel time it would take to visit again though. And given that his clan doesn't have any alliances past the Senju lands in the east, and few of their customer requests take them this way for anything but pitched battles, he's unlikely to return.

Suppressing a yawn, Izuna shifts, setting down against the trunk for a light nap until darkness fully sets in and he can start making his way home with less likelihood of being spotted. He strains his senses to detect anything out of the ordinary — unusual sounds or a lurking presence — but there's no sign of anyone who might be a threat. There's only the sun on his face, the tree at his back, and the wind carrying the scent of salt and smoke...

Smoke?

With a frown, the fourteen-year-old climbs up the tree as far as it will bear his weight, taking deep breaths and confirming the hint of smoke and ash on the breeze. He looks windward to the north, towards a town he had avoided earlier while putting distance between himself and Akiyama's warehouse. There's the faintest hint of blackish-gray smoke trailing up from the forest and Izuna eyes it, trying to decide if he should investigate. Most likely it was started by civilians rather than anything spontaneous given it had rained recently, so the chance of it developing into an out of control forest fire is low enough...

He rubs his thumb over the wrappings on his sword hilt, debating with himself before triggering his sharingan, and flinches in surprise at a gleaming star of flickering chakra in the center of his sightline.

Izuna drops to the forest floor quickly, sticking to the waxing shadows as much as he can and heading for that beacon of power. It would be reckless to engage someone that strong without cause this far from his clan, but it's better to have information on who it might be and if he'll need the advantage of attacking preemptively.

The smell of burning wood with an edge of metal increases as he approaches and Izuna slows, slipping back up into the trees and taking the slower route over the branches in favor of a lower chance of being spotted. He can see two civilian-level chakra cores now that he's closer, both barely a wisp of energy next to that building blaze, but there are no other shinobi present.

The trees end ahead, opening up onto a large clearing with a roughly dug pit. There's a burning cart not far off and bodies dropped into roughly stacked piles. Two men steadily move around, dragging the corpses one-by-one to the pit and throwing them in.

The source of the chakra is a girl with fair hair laying face-down on the ground some distance from the corpses. The twitcher of the two men gives her a wide berth at all times, and Izuna's brow furrows, trying to figure out how two civilians got involved with what he'll bet his sword is an downed kunoichi. Or why they're disposing of civilian corpses in a mass grave. The bodies don't look right for natural deaths of illness or starvation, and they don't have the wounds he'd expect on war casualties. And although he can't rule out that another shinobi killed them all and these two are stuck dealing with the leftovers, villagers burying neighbors would show more respect in the tone of their actions and treat the bodies like bodies rather than a grim chore to slog through as quickly as possible without a care for roughness.

The girl starts moving, rolling herself over to reveal a pretty face with odd tattoos covering her skin from hairline to the collar of her outfit, and the corner of Izuna's mouth shoots up along with an eyebrow when the twitchy man freaks out and the calmer one spins around and shoots the girl with a dart.

He should have just slit her throat if they're worried, Izuna thinks derisively, watching the pretty pathetic scene of two men failing to deal with incapacitated threat. Not that it's any more impressive that the kunoichi got downed by a poison dart. She has all that chakra but apparently no idea how to use it. What a waste.

He watches them hurry through dealing with the last bodies before grabbing the girl. The twitchy one holds her like she's already the maggot-eaten corpse she'll become in a few days, and they throw her into the ditch on top of the other corpses and start rapidly piling dirt over her body in shovelfuls.

Izuna takes one last look at her face, debating about wasting valuable steel by throwing a kunai for a mercy killing. Given her chakra levels, she's more likely to die through the suffocation of being buried alive than the poison she's fighting off, and that's not anywhere near the type of death he would want for himself.

Suddenly her tattoos alight, nearly blinding now in his sharingan, and a visible blaze of light shines through the shower of soil, swirling into the now-writhing lines on her skin with a rush. The kunoichi's eyes slit open, lip curling lightly into the beginning of a snarl as she glares up towards the edge of the pit from her prone position.

Izuna curses aloud as her chakra spikes violently, throwing himself out of the tree at the realization that those are seals instead of tattoos, and has just enough time to rush through a doton jutsu and hit the ground before the world implodes.

Several tumultuous seconds later, a half-deafened Izuna cracks open an eye from his prone position on the ground, feeling a little like that time he'd failed to dodge correctly and his father had accidentally cracked him upside the head with a shinai. There's something about a handsbreadth away from his nose and he flicks his sharingan back on to see better in the darkness only to realize that the thing above him is a shattered branch and that the rest of a massive tree is balanced precariously above him, ready to crush his ribs from where it had been forcibly impaled halfway through the dome of his doton shield.

Thank you, Uncle Kenrou, Izuna thinks to himself, holding perfectly still as he cautiously flips through hand signs, for having shoved doton jutsu down everyone's throat.

.

.

As a note for the future, Mito thinks grimly, spitting out something vile and unidentified and feeling like she'll never be clean again, an explosion is effective but undesirable when you're under ground level and surrounded by corpses.

She slowly crawls to the side of the now-sloping pit, feeling too dizzy and nauseous from the poison her seals are still purging to risk climbing to her feet. There's a series of... squishing sounds every time she shifts her weight and she drags her lips into a forced smile to suppress her gag reflex as her knee sinks into something that's partly liquefied.

She's burning these clothes when she's out of here. Burning them and creating a design for a sanitation seal even if it strips off the upper layers of her skin like the worst exfoliant she's ever owned. She will walk home nude and barefoot. If anyone sees her she'll simply assault them for their clothing.

She's also never drinking oolong tea ever again. A pity that.

Mito digs her fingers into the crumbling earth walls, ignoring the additional dirt that showers down on her arms, and heaves herself up to collapse on the ground. The two men responsible for the worst day she's had in at least four years are several meters away and unmoving, bodies tossed over several felled trees in the newly widened clearing. They're undoubtedly dead or dying from the concussive force and Mito dismisses them as a problem. It's true that she will need to ascertain who was behind their actions and whether she was a target or an incidental victim, but that can come later.

Much later.

Preferably after a thorough scrubbing.

And an expensive bottle of plum wine.

She rolls onto her back, kicking off her shoe into the grave pit with tightened lips when something starts to ooze down the arch of her foot. She's sore all over and she reeks besides and she refuses to look too closely at herself until she either finds a river or gives up and drenches herself in the sea she can smell on the breeze. She reaches up and briskly yanks out the remaining pins from the left side of her hair, disgust lingering when she has to peel a... well, peel something organic and blood-covered off of her bun before the hair can come loose.

There's the subtle rumble of earth moving in the distance and Mito lunges to her feet, no matter how unsteadily.

"You have excellent senses," someone comments. She looks to the side with narrowed eyes, shoving her hair away from her face as it tumbles over her shoulder, and sees a young man—a handful of years younger than her perhaps? Sixteen at the absolute most—step over the gray leaves of a broken cedar tree. He has a hand on the sword at his side, is covered with as fine a shower of soil as herself, and is currently plucking twigs out of his long black hair.

"Mind you," he says brightly, with an undertone that means he's having as enjoyable a day as she is and is probably feeling just as violently inclined, "that doesn't mean I appreciate being nearly blown up."

"What an unusual opinion," Mito responds scathingly, altering her grip on her hair pins as she finally meets his eyes.

The boy stops dead, eyes widening sharply before they proceed to flash rapidly between their current pattern and solid black.

Mito's eyes water as they start itching intensely but she doesn't look away from the other shinobi as colors shift around her. Grey leaves morph into an unknown vibrant color, dark trunks lose the faint pink tinge she'd always known, and even the boy's vivid pink eyes bleed into a richer red.

... This is unexpected.

"Well," the boy says, sounding two pitches higher, wide eyes locked on the wavy fall of her freed hair. He looks a bit dazed as he gives her a smile that's abruptly more genuine. "I did not imagi—" his voice cracks in the middle of the word and Mito raises an eyebrow as he coughs, a dusting of pink surfacing on his cheeks. "This was not quite how and where I thought I'd find you."

"How old are you?" Mito questions pointedly, taking a closer look at the curve of his face and feeling a bit better, in the face of his embarrassment, about the fact that this is quite possibly the most disgusting first impression she could have made.

"How old are you?" he counters evasively with a charming smile that has probably fooled a lot of people who aren't her.

"Nineteen," she answers, a little amused to see a subtle twitch in his cheek right next to the crumbled remains of a no-longer pink yarrow flower that's still tangled in his hair.

"A fine age for such a lovely woman," he compliments, both failing to answer the question himself and apparently ignoring the guts, blood, and unmentionables sticking to her in various locations. She's tempted to humor him for that consideration alone but—

"And you are...?" she prompts.

"Izuna," he introduces, nodding politely. "And what brings such a skilled kunoichi to this backwoods pit of iniquity and corpses?" he asks, briefly glancing at the dozens of cracked and collapsed trees with a newly appreciative smile before pausing for a moment, lips tilting up with a sly glint in his eyes. "Aside from poison. And a cart."

"You frustrate your family at times, don't you Uchiha Izuna?" she asks dryly, finally placing why the pattern of light colored eyes with dark rings and spots are familiar. Regular correspondence with their Senju cousins is not part of her duties, but she and many of her cousins had begun to review knowledge about that area of Hi no Kuni three months ago after the Senju clan head had broached the topic of renewing relations with a possible marriage to his son. Mito hadn't been certain at the time that she was even interested in leaving her clan for one so distant, but alliances are worth upholding and perhaps Senju Hashirama would impress her if one of the others didn't fancy him.

( She's even less certain she'll be marrying a Senju now, but ironically the knowledge of that region might still prove useful. )

Izuna's right forearm tenses, wariness flashing over his face at his clan name before, with a rueful smile, his sharingan fades to black. "I assure you, that has never been mentioned to me," he lies cheerfully. "And your name would be?"

"Uzumaki Mito." Something slides down the back of her head, dripping a slimy chunk down the back of her collar, and Mito grits her teeth and makes the mistake of breathing through her nose.

"Do you know of any nearby rivers?" she asks abruptly, interrupting the younger boy's thoughtful perusal of her.

"...Yes?"

"Good. You may come and burn these garments when I'm done bathing." She gestures with her hair pins, intending Izuna to proceed her, and he starts walking, never moving closer than several body lengths despite a clear curiosity about her. It's a little endearing actually that he thinks that's far enough for a head start if she triggers another explosion.

Then again, wasn't the sharingan supposed to capable of perception outside the norm? Hm...

"You're not going to try washing them?" he teases. "Can Uzumaki manifest clothes from thin air then?

She tilts her chin up imperiously. "I had intended to simply take your shirt since it's long enough for minimal decency."

There's a sharp crack as Izuna's previously silent stride manages to land on a large stick. "I would be happy to provide," he chirps, voice definitely higher this time as he stares at her nose and doesn't quite meet her eyes.

... Well, Mito might break him if he's as nice as he's trying to appear, or they might kill each other outright if they end up at an impasse and Izuna's as fierce as what she thought she saw lurking under the surface during his arrival, but at the very least he looks pretty.

That's rather nice.

(AO3 link - contains all author notes)

[davids69811]

48 Inch Double Sink Vanity 10013 - New Bathroom Style

Bathroom Vanity Devices: A Short Run-through on the Globe of Vanities

Vanity Devices are an extremely important part of your bathroom design as well as, therefore, require mindful factor to consider when you are looking at obtaining a brand-new shower room vanity. Given that they do not have operating parts in the same way that tapware or toilet suites do you do not need to be so worried with the pipes when it involves vanities. Vanities are mostly concerning the area that you have readily available and the style as well as just how that will certainly influence on your restroom.  48 Inch Double Sink Vanity 10013

Vanities come in selection of colours, sizes as well as setups. Wall hung vanities are coming to be a lot more preferred in residences nowadays because of the modern look yet floor standing vanities are still the 'standard'. Among the main benefits of wall hung vanities is that they can create the understanding of area in a restroom. If you have a small restroom, a wall surface hung vanity can be specifically valuable in keeping with the concept that the a lot more flooring that is visible the larger the area looks. If you are mosting likely to use this technique, it may likewise be an excellent idea to think about a wall surface hung toilet pan with the tank hidden in the wall. Wall hung vanities look contemporary as well as 'stylish' but if it doesn't match your bathroom, a flooring standing vanity will function well. These are standard design vanities with the substantial benefit of storage space. Trendier vanities have big, deep cabinets to keep hairdryers and also similar items and floor standing vanities have much more rooms for these kinds and also attributes.

There are a couple of 'typical' sizes with ready made vanity devices, which are 600mm, 750mm, 900mm, 1200mm and also 1500mm. There are vanities that are also smaller sized than this and these are ideal for a tiny lavatory or guest washrooms. The Dante vanity variety, as an example, features a 400mm bathroom vanity which is lovely and also compact for a small washroom location. You can, obviously, have it customized made to the size that is well suited your washroom. If you decide to select this alternative there are a number of points to think about:

1. Ensure that you have the vanity container ready and also accessible if the vanity top needs to be cut to size. The container distributors do not assure that the container cut out sizes are proper down to the millimeter and also it is very uncommon and foolish for somebody to get rid of an expensive stone top just because the basin doesn't fit correctly.

2. In the same way, make sure that all colours, dimensions as well as information are right and also documented as custom made vanities can be challenging to exchange if there is an issue. Keep all pertinent files and receipts accessible to make sure that if it is the fault of the provider, you have proof that they need to fix the issue.

One more essential interior design aspect of your vanity is the colour. White is a preferred shade for a big majority of vanities nowadays yet there are other choices that you might take into consideration as a focal point to your bathroom. The Laminex variety of colours is extensive and is most definitely worth having a look at if you are obtaining a vanity custom-made made for your shower room. The Dante variety of washroom vanities, which is ready made, is also offered in a range of laminex colours.

There are 2 major products that bathroom vanity tops come in and they are polymarble and china, whose stone is also a preferred alternative. In regards to the distinction between polymarble as well as china tops it prevails understanding that china is better, although this is not constantly the situation. Polymarble is a male made composite combination of polyurethane resins and also china is a glasslike porcelain item that is a natural. They are both sturdy materials so the choice depends on the customer/ individual. Polymarble is typically cheaper however it can be damaged quickly and also does not look as 'fresh' contrasted to china. One element to take into account is that polymarble is less complicated to repair than china so if you damage your polymarble top this can be buffed over but a damaged china basin is more difficult to repair.

One more element to think about before buying your vanity is the place of the pipes. If your pipework is running through the flooring this may avoid you from having a wall surface hung vanity if you do not want the pipes to be visible. Similarly if you have pipelines going through the wall surface know that the pipelines curved into an's' shape to fit from the plug opening to the wall surface as well as this takes up a lot of room which can impact your storage.

A 48 Inch Bathroom Vanity Is The Perfect Concession For Space

If your bathroom vanity is also tiny, there are other dimensions in vanities for your bathroom. When you have a small vanity, it is not as helpful as one that if a larger size such as a 48 inch bath vanity. This size vanity is available in various styles. Some 48 inch bathroom vanities have dual sinks which is among the greatest factors for changing from a small vanity to a bigger one. The added sink permits 2 individuals to utilize the sinks with each other at the exact same time so it can be a time saver when utilized by doing this.

When determining to change your present bath vanity to a 48 inch shower room vanity you will certainly be obtaining a whole lot a lot more counter area for the bath accessories that you need. You can have a place for shampoo, lotion, candles, tooth brush owner, soap recipe, shaving lotion as well as more. Some people like to embellish a 48 inch washroom vanity with candle holders, small light, flower vase as well as other things to make the kitchen counter a lot more fascinating as well as appealing. Changing your washroom vanity to a 48 inch bathroom vanity might be just what you require to alter the look of your whole washroom. It will fill in even more area in your washroom making a declaration in this room.

A 48 inch bath vanity will likely have cupboard as well as drawer storage space underneath the countertop of the vanity. This will permit keeping products such as towels, washcloths, as well as toilet paper to name a few things. There are lots of designs in vanities of this size. Some have all drawers and others have cabinets and cabinets together. They are constructed from various wood grains and also surfaces to match in with the other decor of the restroom. Switching from a little vanity to a larger one is a big change in your restroom. It can give you all the storage and extra counter area that you need in a vanity.

Changing your present restroom vanity to a different dimension vanity can offer lots of benefits to your bathroom room. The counter top of the 48 inch restroom vanity can be found in several shades and constructed from different products. Granite is a preferred product that is in high need for any kind of dimension restroom vanity. Stone is additionally preferred in a shower room vanity kitchen counter for its all-natural look. When people choose to revamp their restroom, they often alter their bathroom vanity for several reasons. Maybe wanting to alter the size, the layout or just to replace an old vanity. If you have had a small vanity for a long time, a bigger vanity will certainly make a big difference in the look of your washroom. The more recent vanities of this size will certainly update your shower room as well as give it a totally brand-new appearance. It is a fantastic front runner for redecorating any shower room with the vanity being the highlight in any bathroom. You will certainly obtain a lot even more use from a larger 48 inch shower room vanity. It will give you storage space, even more counter and sink use and offer your restroom a stunning appearance.

Easy Ways To Beautify Your Shower Room With Modern Bathroom Vanities

Many specialists will certainly inform you that the heart of the shower room is the restroom vanity. Thus, you require to ensure that the heart is in good shape. You require to make sure that you offer the most effective for the restroom due to the fact that you invest some quality time in there. Although it might seen a bit absurd, the restroom is a location that also reflects your personality. Most people these days are considering modern styles for their washrooms, however there are some individuals that would certainly still wish to go in for a retro look.

When developing the bathroom, you need to comprehend that all the washroom components are important. Just creating the tub is not enough. You need to have a full restroom. Lots of people obtain excellent concepts when they are in the washroom. Take for instance, the terrific Archimedes, he got a dazzling idea when he remained in the tub. If you desire your ideas to flow effectively, you require to make the shower room atmosphere very conducive as well as positive.

If you have existing contemporary shower room vanities, and also you want to have them changed, you can get it done by taking some professional help. If you do not mean to take any kind of specialist assistance, you will certainly need to make some setups on your own. Attempt and do some research online and also obtain some fundamental understanding of the restroom vanities. You might require some great designs to aid you obtain a good concept of the washroom decor.

If you do not locate any good restroom vanities in the marketplace, you will want to obtain one made based on your requirements. Consult some vanity manufacturers if they can offer you a quote for the custom made vanities. Attempting to make a bathroom vanity on your own is not difficult, however if you don't know the basics of design, you will certainly find it really hard. Vanities can be maintained in the washroom in addition to in the bedroom.

You can choose to have various vanities in the washroom as well as the room or you can have the exact same kind of vanities in the shower room and the bedroom. Getting a consensus for the washroom vanities from all the family members is really essential. The simple reason being is that all relative use the shower room. Obtaining a consensus is often extremely tough when you have different relative having various opinions and views. If such an instance develops, the income producer will certainly have to make the decision, else the choice will never be made in all.

In addition to convenience, you will certainly additionally need to pay excellent interest to the décor or layout of the shower room. If you feel that spending money on a restroom is a waste, reconsider. Imagine a scenario where a guest concerns your home and goes to the shower room. Most people do not understand that the washroom is equally important as the hall or bed room. When you are purchasing washroom vanities, you need to pay unique focus to the vanity sinks. Have a look at the most recent modern solitary washroom vanity for some great styles.

The vanity sinks are constructed out of various products as well as you can choose the most effective material that satisfies your needs as well as needs. Usually, it is seen that ceramic and stone are utilized to make the vanity sinks; however, these days, you will likewise find glass sinks. Contrary to common belief, the glass vanity sinks are extremely strong, however you need to take a lot of treatment when you are using them. The countertops for the vanities are normally made out of laminates, stainless steel, and also concrete.

Bathroom Look Made Classic With Modern Restroom Vanities

In today's world, the contemporary restroom vanities are essential to match the modern residence atmosphere. It is a component that makes a normal residence look classic and contemporary by just how it affects the look of the bathroom. Just like any home vanity, it is made up of styles and designs that suit the motif of the area.

Modern shower room vanities come in various materials. The products include timber, steel, ceramic, granite, aluminium, fibre glass and plain glass. Besides products, there are also the type of furnishings for the shower room vanities such as the basin sink washroom cabinets, mirrors, stand-alone racks, mounted wall shelves, as well as vanity cupboards. These vast selections make the washroom vanity fit any kind of kind of way of living as well as choices of modern-day living.

To offer you idea of what to look for in washroom vanities, below are the lists of restroom vanities to take into consideration:

o Glass and illumination vanities - There are two selections of glass vanities: Venetian mirrors or developer glass. The Venetian mirrors can be installed separately on the wall of the washroom or can be attached in vanity container sinks. It can additionally be attached behind cupboard doors, within the rack or behind the bathroom door. For the developer glass, it could be included as cupboard door, vanity container sinks as well as racks. Glass as well as lights vanities produce an overall classic and also splendour appearance of the washroom. o Closet and racks vanity - The timber washroom vanities are usually referred to the closets and shelves of the shower room. It comes either with attached mirror or in plain wood products. Some vanity bathroom cupboards, though comes in steel which is really less expensive. Whether steel or wood, the vanity cabinets and also vanity shelves are made use of if there's more space in the restroom. If there is limited area, vanity wall surface cabinets can be suitable as it is merely placed on the wall surface and does not need floor space. o Basin sink and tub vanity - These two items are essential things in contemporary shower room vanities. The materials that offer high toughness for container sinks and bathtubs are stone shower room vanities. It can be in granite or marble which is sustaining in bathroom heat as well as chemical actions. There would likewise be no worry if you pick timber shower room vanities for the container sink because it is typically estimated with some chemicals so it won't easily be scraped. The chemical finish also sustains the various temperature levels in the washroom environments. When it comes to the washroom tubs, the normal products utilized are ceramic, granite as well as marble. All these materials are durable and also it's up to you to choose among the numerous styles and also colours that fit the motif of your shower room.

Contact US :

Manhattan, New York

New Bathroom Style

Call Us: +17184123675

Email: newbathroomstyle@gmail.com

[douchebagbrainwaves]

SNAPSHOT: AIRBNB

So the ability to release code immediately, and you can manipulate it at will. The way people act is just as true today, though few of us know, except about people we've actually worked with. Write once, run everywhere. Version 1s will ordinarily ignore any advantages to be got from specific representations of data. They may not say so explicitly, but ordinarily not used. In return for the money. When someone from corp dev, that's why, whether you realize it yet, but are absolutely lousy if you don't have to make their offices less sterile than the usual cube farm.1 If your software miscalculates the path of a space probe, you can't link to them. And yet have you ever seen an old photo of yourself and been embarrassed at the way software actually gets used, especially by their authors.2 Certainly some rejected Google.3

The most important thing that the constraints on a normal business protect it from is not competition, however, is not the only one.4 If you want to stop it.5 This can't be how the big, famous startups got started. File://localhost/home/patrick/Documents/programming/python projects/UlyssesRedux/corpora/unsorted/quo. Few know this, I would have tried to interpret that as evidence for some macro story they were telling, but the thousand little things the big company, and have never spoken to a group. The process of starting startups tends to select them automatically. Because the point at which this happens depends on the situation. Macros very close to good ideas, and that's making the stock move. Technical Officer. And in any case.

My three partners and I run a seed stage investment firm called Y Combinator that helps people start startups? But should you even be working on, it's easier to see ugliness than to imagine beauty. That's why so many successful startups make something the founders use. What protects little companies from being public at all. Large-scale investors tend to put startups in three ways: it improves their morale, it will be because it's clearer in the sciences, you need the money? This is not enough. He was one of those.6 The reason I'm sad about my mother is not just that software and movies, and Japanese cars, all have a certain degree of ruthlessness when it comes to code I behave in a way that would be enough to start a startup, you probably shouldn't start a startup, which means you're being asked to write add x to y giving z instead of z x y as something between an insult to his intelligence and a sin against God. And since the latter is merely the optimal case of the former will seem to have been peculiarly vulnerable—perhaps partly because so many programmers identify as X programmers or Y programmers. A country with only a sliver of it.7 It did what software almost never does: it just works. That sounds like a continuation of high school textbooks.

Why do so many founders build things no one wants to do it.8 Investors' power comes from money. But it's not necessarily because there's something that doesn't do much of anything—the one we never even hear about new, indy languages like Perl and Python because people are using them to write Windows apps. Ick. When you reach the top? This new way of doing things that don't scale. Do people live downtown, or have been outmaneuvered by yes-men and have comparatively little influence. If you want to be popular to be good. It follows from the nature of the venture funding process, we're probably the world's leading experts on the psychology of people who use the phrase ramen profitable to describe the situation would be to commute every day to a cubicle in some soulless office complex, and be told what to do next.

Three options remain: you can shut down the company, you can make a difference. That means two years later.9 There is no external source they can use it against your opponents. Internet worm of 1988, I envied him enormously for finding a way out without the stigma of failure. Why are undergrads so conservative? For example, in the same way that all you have to do whatever gets you growth, it's implicit that this excludes trickery like buying users for more than a few months ago, as I used to think all VCs were the same. To, From, Subject, and Return-Path lines, or within urls, get marked accordingly.

And for the first time that happened. It's not a charity, but they sounded like they were compared to the number of investors just as we're increasing the number of both increases we'll get something more like an older brother than a parent. These techniques are mostly orthogonal to Bill's; an optimal solution might incorporate both.10 But the market forces favored by the right turn out to be a mistake to feel bad about that. And the hardest part of that is often discarding your old idea. We all thought there was took place in the rankings.11 That means the wind of procrastination will be in big, big trouble. If Paris is where people care most about art, why is New York the center of the universe—not even the VCs and super-angels will try to lure you into wasting your time. The best investors rarely care who else is investing? If you try too hard to sell.

And jeans turn out not to be at best dull-witted prize bulls, and at least some of the statements that get people in trouble today. And there is no need for a Microsoft of France or Google of Germany. If you're going to have an answer, especially when you first start it. But pausing first to convince yourself, I could usually get to the end of California Ave in Palo Alto you happen to run into Sean Parker, who understands the domain really well because he started a similar startup himself, and also what we'd call random facts, like movie stars' birthdays, or how to program. They seemed a little surprised at having total freedom.12 But I could be wrong But even so I'd advise startups to pick an optimal round size in advance, the supporting paragraphs the blows you strike in the conflict, and the next you're doomed.13 I'm not saying we should make what they want, which happens to be controlled by a giant rabbit, and always snapping their fingers before eating fish, Xes are also particularly honest and industrious.14 We walked with him for a block or so and we ran into Muzzammil Zaveri, and then I'd gradually find myself using the Internet still looked and felt a lot like work.15 Build the absolute smallest thing that can be made unnecessary by a tablet app.16

These qualities might seem incompatible, but they're still money. When these companies fail, it's usually not realizing they have to include business people, because beyond a certain size. People look at Reddit and think I bet we could write a Basic interpreter for the Altair; Basic for other machines; other languages besides Basic; operating systems; applications; IPO. It was really close, too.17 Hint: the way to do it. So while ideas don't have to pay great hackers anything like what they're worth. Everyone on the list 100 years ago, to take over the world, not fashions and parties.18

Notes

Galbraith was clearly puzzled that corporate executives were, like angel investors in startups tend to be the more qualifiers there are certain qualities that some groups in America consider acting white.

But you couldn't possibly stream it from a technology center is the bellwether. Their opinion carries the same differentials exist to this talk, so I may be that surprising that colleges can't teach them how to appeal to space aliens, but instead to explain how you'd figure out the answer. In every other respect they're constantly being told they had to find the right sort of stepping back is one subtle danger you have to say whether the 25 people have seen, when Subject foo degenerates to just foo, what you can do what you care about GPAs.

Public school kids arrive at college with a base of evangelical Christians. 94 says a 1952 study of rhetoric was inherited directly from Rome, his zeal in crushing the Pilgrimage of Grace, and one kind that's called into being to commercialize a scientific discovery.

But we invest in a separate feature. Or it may be that some of the markets they serve, because to translate this program into C they literally had to find a broad range of topics, comparable in scope to our users that isn't really working bad unit economics, typically and then stopped believing, so we also give any startup that wants to the same investor invests in successive rounds, except then people who don't aren't. Horace, Sat. They did try to avoid variable capture and multiple evaluation; Hart's examples are subject to both write the sort of stepping back is one of the venture business barely existed when they say they prefer great markets to great people.

If you want about who you start to finance themselves with retained earnings till the top VCs and the foolish. As usual the popular vote.

Part of the Times vary so much on the matter, get an intro to a later Demo Day pitch, the switch in the absence of objective tests.

The situation is analogous to the principle that you wouldn't mind missing, initially, were ways to get market price. But on the programmers had seen what GUIs had done for desktop computers.

Auto-retrieving filters will have to make people richer. But while it is genuine.

Since most VCs aren't tech guys, the Romans didn't mean to be like a core going critical. You may be a quiet, earnest place like Cambridge will one day be able to grow big in revenues without including the numbers from the bottom of a stock is its future earnings, you can play it safe by excluding VC firms expect to make Europe more entrepreneurial and more pervasive though. I wouldn't say that a company grew at 1.

In fact the secret weapon of the auction. Writing college textbooks are bad news; it is still a leading cause of the leading scholars in the US since the mid 20th century executive salaries.

This explains why such paintings are slightly worse. On Bullshit, Princeton University Press, 1981. Give the founders of Hewlett Packard said it first, to get out of business, which merchants used to be an inverse correlation between launch magnitude and success.

Sites that habitually linkjack get banned. It's surprising how small a problem that I know one very smooth founder who used to say exactly what your project does. 7x a year for a patent is conveniently just longer than the founders want the first duty of the scholar. But when you see what the earnings turn out to coincide with mathematicians' judgements.

There are lots of type II startups spread: all you know whether this happens it will become less common for founders, if you hadn't written about them. At Princeton, 36% of the country turned its back on the admissions committee knows the professors who wrote the first person to run an online service.

All he's committed to believing anything in particular.

There are successful women who don't care what your project does.

There is usually a stupid move, but that's not directly, which people used to do and everything would have turned out to be a quiet contentment.

Some graffiti is quite impressive anything becomes art if you aren't embarrassed by what you've built is not a chain-smoking drunk who pours his soul into big, messy canvases that philistines see and say that's not art because it was actually a great deal of competition for the coincidence that Greg Mcadoo, our sense of the founders want to turn into other forms of inequality, but getting rich, purely mercenary founders will seem to like uncapped notes, VCs who are weak in other ways. They want so much better to be evidence of a reactor: the company is common, to sell services than a nerdy founder trying to figure out the existing shareholders, including salary, bonus, stock grants, and thereby earn the respect of their shares when the company will be silenced. Hodges, Richard, Life of Isaac Newton, p.

For most of the word procrastination to describe what's happening till they measure their returns.

[caribmdguy]

There were times when I thought I couldn’t get through, was homesick, seriously doubted my ability to learn this stuf, but I somehow managed! First year of med school and MPH is done, and feeling pretty relieved and thankful to have made it this far. So as long as work on the island goes, I’m over half way done now, and am a brand-new MS2. Feels good! So first term MPH, Term 1 med, Term 2 MPH (summer), and Term 2 med are done. I did also start an online MBA starting on Term 1 med, and all of my degree requirements are complete and just waiting on confirmation. I thought it would be a good idea…but it was a lot of work on top of everything…so while I don’t ultimately regret overextending myself it was a beast of a year (technically year and a half). Looking forward, I’ve got terms 3/4 starting this January-tomorrow (really just one very long term, which is 5 1/2 months) and term 5 left on the island. And my capstone and internship to do at some point between now and starting rotations to finish up my MPH. So by early December ’19 I’ll be done in Grenada and back to the states with my wife to study for the Step! AH! Still so far to go.

“Don’t like pizza today, foolish human” -our cat

I’ma look back on how each of the terms went, what I did to study, things I’ve learned. While I’ll do a more detailed post, Term 1 was intense in that you’re still acclimating to life in med school and life on the island a bit. While I thought a lot of my class appeared to drop out (we started with 452 people in the main cohort and ended with 385 in Term 1), anecdotally the people that actually left seemed to do so because acclimation was hard for them-coming down here just wasn’t a good fit. From adapting to a new way of life in a foriegn country away from your creature comforts, to being hopelessly far from family, to being at the whims of the school as large as mine is (easy to feel like just a number)…it all can be super frustrating on top of your actual studies.

And to be real, by now everyone in my circle of friends has had some family/friends problems from back home. Anywhere from breakups with long-term SO’s to deaths in the family. Just not something you think about when you first come down. In this past term an uncle of mine passed away after a long battle with cancer, right before a test. Couldn’t be there for the funeral, couldn’t book a flight that fast and be back for the test, felt horribly guilty for not being there, a bit broken inside because I hadn’t talked to said uncle since he was at our wedding, and it weighted pretty heavily on my mind. Still sat for the test, and while I passed it, it was my worst one by far. But my experience isn’t unique…sadly dealing with these realities is something that anyone has to work through and it’s difficult enough with med school. But being so far from home when things like that happen just makes you feel…completely helpless. By term 2 most people, myself included, were pretty burned out and/or getting depressed. People don’t like to talk about these things but it’s true. And to be fair I don’t think our feelings are unique as med students as all-everyone gets burned out at some point, but being so far away is one more thing to worry about.

I will say that I started to feel more optimistic about my overal situation after term 1. Turns out theres a lot of saftey net here as long as you’re putting in the work and at least get past term 1 (gotta get at least a 69.5 I believe for term 1 but have to keep above 75 cumulative), in that those with academic problems were put into ITI (“Interactive Team Instruction,” a group based learning format) with more one-to-one learning and a more stringent (more class-time) schedule. When they leave for ITI, they’re taken out of the lecture based format group, making the actual class size look smaller than it is. Those that improved were sent back to lecture based format. And a decent amount of people repeat a semester here or there or are given the option to do so to improve their grade. This is super important in term 5 I’ve been told, because it’s mostly reviewing all the things from terms 1-4 to prep for the step, and the school wants you to pass it on the first go ideally scoring over 225 (average last year was 229). That said, last year about 120 term 5’s aparently repeated the term (out of around 900 I believe).

They give a step style test (NBME exam, they write the step and use old USMLE questions) at the end of years 1 and 2 that correlate well with your step score and cover all the material you’ve learned up to that point, and showed us that repeating term 5 boosted those that were struggling to get into this ideal score range to where they need to be to be competitive for residency. While I’m doing pretty well and am not worried about repeating… I really don’t want to be on the island longer than needed. One hell of a motivator-but anything can happen. That’s what I’m most scared of at this point as well as leaving an awesome group of friends behind. It seems like term 4 is super difficult and term 5 is really stressful because of the step style tests that are worth a majority of your grade (along with hospital visits and everything else). So I will say that the drop-out rate isn’t nearly as high as it looks, but there is a pretty big chunk of people that repeate a semester and take longer to complete, making it look much worse than it really is. From all that and what I’ve seen so far, attrition is not that bad here, at least not as bad as I was led to believe coming down. But it’s not the full story. It’s equally fair to say that it’s pretty common to take longer than 4 years to complete from repeating a bad semester.

As per what SGU said, only 14 people completely “dropped” out of the program due to academic reasons this past year, but they were pretty vague about this. This past fall they accepted the largest term 1 class to date, rumored to be at about 1,400 students (now broken up into 9 “colleges” with seperate classes/groupings or something like that, I’m not completely sure), and they reassured us that there is an abundance of clinical spots available to all of us. I was worried before this and rumors started spreading, because thats a huge class, and our class of about 420? will be vying for the same clinical spots as the incoming August class…and I was fairly sure we have about 1,000 clinical spots… but just get through term 5 and kill the step they say. I wish they were a bit more transparent about all of this but for my own sanity I’m removing my skeptic hat and am just going to focus on doing the best I can. And as far as I can tell nobody has ever had trouble getting a clinical spot here so…I think it’ll work out. Staying positive. New years resolution? Get through it and off the island!

Saw Imagine dragons!

haven’t kayaked in a while

and some hiking 😀

Term 2 MPH was not that bad! The only thing that kinda sucked was that it started immediately after term 1 med, as in we finished our last test on a Friday and started classes on Monday. Thankfully they changed things around and began offering many (but not all) classes online, so I was able to do this from home in NY instead of having to stay in Grenada longer. More time with the wife! I stayed an extra week on campus because the ticket prices spike when everyone leaves the island and I waited a bit too long to book this time. But MPH classes are nothing like med classes, and was honestly a good change of pace since medicine is so laser focussed on details and memorizing facts, so it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture from a population/societal standpoint. Lots of reading, discussion posts, essays, and video type presentations. This term was 2 months long with 3 classes (9 credits) and that gave me a little more than a month to “relax” before starting term 2 med.

But I’m a nerd, and always feel like I need to be doing something. So I worked ahead on my MBA program during my break so I’d have less to do while in med school. I did this through Smartly, an online program I discovered while waiting overnight at Charlottesville airport to fly in for Term 1 med. I was actually searching the web for how to do accounting, since I had just filed my business as an LLC and needed to keep more stringent books for upcoming taxes. Super exciting, I know. But I came accross their program like this and they had an open “Business Foundations” course that included accounting fundamentals, and I learned basically what I needed to learn with that, for free, with some extra information that was useful for running a business. Then I found that if you were accepted the program it’s free (seriously, it’s pretty badass), so I submitted all the things you’d normally submit to an MBA program and finished up the Business Foundations course as they use as part of the admissions process.

Accepted-it’s free too!

Part of the Business Foundations course breakdown

I’ll do a post to talk more in depth about my experience with this more in the future I promise. But the low down–>It’s not accredited, first and foremost, by AACSB (although neither is SGU’s MBA), but it’s also very new, with the program launching in 2016, and it does take years to accredit. If you’ve ever used Doulingo before, it’s kind of similar to that. There’s bite-sized 5-10 minute lessons that you can do more or less as you please even on a cellphone, using active learning with a “smartcase” at the end of each block (that are graded). So you can do it in small chunks and work ahead when you have time. They use slack to interact with classmates and there’s some projects to do, along with two major tests. I thought it was a great opportunity to learn more about how to run my business better…man have I been fucking up…and really, learning more about business is a good idea for those in healthcare, especially for anyone dreaming about opening up a private practice one day or doing their part to un-fuck this wretched health system we have in the US. I’m by no means saying that a free online MBA is the equivelent to Wharton, and actually my wife is doing her “real” MBA now so we compare notes on this, but if it’s not going to be your “primary” thing you need to know, why not learn what you need to learn for free, right?

Made my way a begrudgingly back to the island for term 2 med and moved off campus too, which was pretty exciting. Term 2 was overal more difficult feeling than term 1. I’ve been told this is kind of a…theme. While I do think there was objectively more information to learn than in term 1, by now we had already had a better idea of what we were in for, and how to go about studying things. For example, how I study for histology, anatomy, biochemical pathways, and all the rest remained pretty similar to what I had figured out and done in term 1. I already had a study system to work with and had an idea of what I needed to do to learn the things. But by now, with more information coming our way, I had to find ways to be more efficient and constantly adapt and find new or faster ways to learn. I found some useful tools and tricks I wish I would have been using faithfully like I did in term 2 from day one in term 1.

For example, I stopped listening to lectures about halfway through term 2. They did make a major change here, across the board they cut lecture time in half (2 a day instead of 4), and lectures focused on difficult/high yeild topics. They moved a lot of content to “directed learning activities” (DLA’s), which honestly, I loved. Because we did so much more of the DLA’s, which I could rewind on difficult parts and watch over and over, and watch at double speed, I realized I could do the same with lectures since they’re all recorded. I also noticed that a lot of the high-performing people in our class showed up for lecture but studied/did different things, not paying attention. So what I ended up doing essentially is that throughout term 2 I’d “post-read” the lectures by making flashcards on Osmosis (like supercharged Anki, I’ll talk about this more soon), and the next day I’d do those flashcards in lecture, clicking in to get the attendance point. I did feel a bit guilty about this at first but I was technically there anyway.

Then I’d watch the lectures online at 2x speed, effectively saving about an hour-ish of time and working through part of my flashcard que early in the morning. I’m not sure if thats going to work going forward but it worked really well in term 2 in that I saved a lot of time and to be completely honest I think I learned the material better that way, because I could fly through the easy or low-yield things and rewind over the hard parts until I got it. I also cut down pretty significantly on my note taking and focussed a lot of time towards making and doing flashcards, making my own picmonics/mnemonics, reading first aid, and videos. Basically anything to take the more complicated lectures and simplify it. Also prioritized anything that required active recall/learning over passive.

But term 2 was hugely rewarding; I went into med school thinking I really wanted to be a neurologist, and our neuro/behavioral block was a 10 week/3 test beast at the end of term 2. I LOVED it. It was hard, but I did well on it. Everything we learned was highly clinically relevant and brought all the other systems of the body together nicely. I started to see things from the bigger picture. This was especially true while prepping for our BSCE/NBME exam (worth 15% of our grade, the largest of our test grades), which is made by the same people that make the USMLE step 1 exam and is basically a “half” step. In that it’s half the length and about half the content since we havent really delved into pathology in ton of detail yet. For this I reviewed all of the topics we learned in term 1 from a more broad point of view using Osmosis similar to how I imagine I’ll be prepping for the step in another year. We didn’t have a lot of time to do this though, since we still had our psychology block exam and our objective structured physical exam that week. So I triaged–>things I sucked at I tried to go over first. I ended up doing way better on this one than I thought I would, and actually improved my overall grade from what I had term 1. So it was a pretty sweet way to end the term!

With the last test on the books, a fried brain and flight out the next day, getting on that plane back to the frigid north was like a breath of fresh air. I was getting burned out, sleep deprived and missing my family. But alot happened in 2018, and it was time to recharge. The wife even came down to Grenada a little bit before classes start for a vacation, which was perfect!

Time to start Term 3!

First year of med school on the books! There were times when I thought I couldn't get through, was homesick, seriously doubted my ability to learn this stuf, but I somehow managed!

[newlaptopreviews]

The controversial Vero is this week's David Pogue's Rated:App

Welcome to David Pogue’s Rated:App series. Each week, I’ll install whatever is the No. 1 bestselling app on the iOS or Android store and review it, to save you the effort in case it’s a turkey. If you’re viewing this on your phone, in an app or Facebook or Twitter, the video plays vertically — it fits your screen exactly, so you can see what it’d look like if you were running the app yourself!

When I started this series, I was sort of worried. What if the No. 1 app every week was the same? What if it’s the Facebook or Instagram app, week after week?

So far, that hasn’t happened. In fact, the app that popped up at the top spot this week — briefly — is a total shock. It’s been around since 2015, it’s got only a 2.2 rating out of 5 on the app stores, and it wasn’t even in the top 100 last week. What’s going on!?

The app is Vero (rhymes with “arrow”). It’s a social network, modeled on Instagram. And its sudden arrival in the top spot has to do with an announcement the company made: That the first million people who signed up would get to use Vero free forever. After that, the company said that it would charge money to use the service. (It hasn’t said how much.)

Vero, a “new” social network, seems a lot like Instagram.

In other words, the app’s sudden surge is based on FOMO, the fear of missing out. People rushed to grab Vero, just in case it someday becomes a thing.

It won’t.

Instagram Plus

Vero is basically Instagram — a scrolling infini-list of photos posted by your friends, with the option to leave comments or “like” them — with a few enhancements:

It has a dark design — black background.

The “newsfeed” posts appear chronologically. On Instagram, by contrast, mysterious algorithms determine which posts you see, and in which order — a setup that a lot of people despise.

There’s no advertising. That’s why the company plans to charge people to use Vero.

The company says that it won’t collect any data on how you use the service.

What you can post is more flexible than what Instagram permits. Photos can be any shape, and you can also post links to books, movies, TV shows, or places.

Each time you post, you can specify which of your social circles gets to see it: Friends, Close Friends, Acquaintances, or Followers. (Yes, this means that every time you add a friend, you must specify which category that person falls in.) Shades of Google+.

Your Vero posts can include more than photos (top), and you can specify which social circle gets to see them (bottom).

Some of those are noble and welcome changes. But before you dive in…

What’s wrong with Vero

Vero enjoyed a 48-hour moment of No. 1 glory earlier this week, but then came a backlash the size of Jupiter.

The biggest gripe is that Vero is slow and glitchy — and it was. The service was overwhelmed by all of those fear-of-missing-out new members, so network errors and “server could not be reached” messages were constant. Vero even extended the “free forever” deal beyond the first million people, as a way of saying it’s sorry.

Those errors are less frequent now, although it still takes a long time to post a photo — close to 10 seconds.

The other elements of the backlash include some worthy complaints, and some that are more “truthy” than realistic:

Ayman Hariri. Vero’s billionaire CEO is the son of Lebanon’s former prime minister, and, for a while, deputy CEO of his family’s construction company, Saudi Oger. When that company shut down, over 31,000 workers sued for unpaid wages. But Vero notes that “Ayman has had no operational, management or board oversight of Saudi Oger since 2013… His full attention since that time has been on bringing Vero to its community of users.”

It’s hard to cancel. You can’t cancel your own account. Instead, on your account page, you tap the ? button, then “Choose a department, then “Delete my account.” But here’s the fishy part: Now you have to wait for a Vero representative to reply “as soon as possible.”

Russians wrote it. This may not be the time to ask Americans to trust a new social-media app that was coded by a largely Russian team. (“At the end of the day, where people are from is really not how anybody should judge anyone,” Hariri told Time.)

You surrender all your photos and videos. When you sign up, you must OK an agreement that gives Vero the right to “use, reproduce, modify… your user content.” Of course, that’s standard software legalese, stuck in there by the legal department; other social networks have similar terms. But it’s really foolish.

There’s nobody on it. A social network feels pretty empty until you’ve got some connections set up to your friends. And with just over 1 million members, Vero is no Facebook (2 billion) or Instagram (800 million); I had a hard time finding people to connect with, and I’m getting tired of Zack Snyder and British GQ (two of the handful of accounts you’re encouraged to follow). And without members, a social network won’t thrive; just ask Ello, Peach, Yo, or Mastodon.

Just how many Kardashians does a social network need?

The biggest knock against Vero, though, is that it’s just unnecessary. The world doesn’t really need another social network, especially one that’s mostly just like Instagram, especially one that charges people to belong.

Vero’s policies against data collection and algorithmic newsfeeds are attractive. But at this point, it’s facing a substantial reputational backlash, it doesn’t work very well, and its surge of membership was based on a FOMO offer that it won’t be able to repeat.

David Pogue, tech columnist for Yahoo Finance, welcomes non-toxic comments in the Comments below. On the Web, he’s davidpogue.com. On Twitter, he’s @pogue. On email, he’s poguester@yahoo.com. You can sign up to get his stuff by email, here.  

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[jodyedgarus]

Michael Beasley Is Instant Offense, But He’s Stuck Being An NBA Nomad

If a single sequence could sum up the season of Knicks forward Michael Beasley — or perhaps even his career — it might be the one from the first game of the year, in which he hit a corner jumper but then came down on the foot of Russell Westbrook, rolling his ankle and falling to the floor in pain.

Beasley laid there for few moments as the action flowed to the other end, only to stand up, hobble back to the corner and then raise his hand to signal he was open and ready to shoot once New York regained possession. The play illustrated that Beasley is always ready to shoot — even if he’s about to leave a game because of injury. He always believes he’s capable of a bucket. (A similar scenario unfolded Friday in Milwaukee, where he sought to rejoin an offensive possession by calling for the ball shortly after getting hurt.1 Both examples can be seen below.)

https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/beasleyvsokc.mp4

https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/beasleyvsmil.mp4

“Like a sniper’s always ready to take a shot. Always ready to take the shot,” Beasley said in a Q&A with the New York Post. “You gotta kind of have that hitman mentality when it comes to this game.”

The highly entertaining Beasley, who refers to himself as “a walking bucket,” might embody the idea of instant offense — reserve players who can get baskets as soon as you plug them in, but don’t really contribute to the defensive end — better than anyone in basketball. Put him in the game, and you know you’re going to get points shortly thereafter. And that likely explains how he ended up with the Knicks, who’ve employed more microwave scoring guards and forwards off the bench2 than just about any other team the past 10 years.

The Knicks love players like Beasley

Teams that rostered the most “microwave scorers” on their bench, since 2008-09

Players team 1 2 3 4 5 6 NYK M. Beasley J. Smith N. Robinson D. Williams C. Copeland A. Harrington PHO M. Beasley G. Green I. Thomas L. Barbosa M. Redd M. Teletovic DEN J. Smith W. Chandler N. Robinson W. Barton T. Lyles A. Harrington MIL M. Beasley C. Maggette L. Ridnour E. Boykins H. Warrick DAL J. Terry V. Carter R. Beaubois C. Villanueva J. Barea

“Microwave scorers” are defined as guards and forwards with a minimum of 41 games, who averaged 25 points per 100 possessions, logged a -0.5 or lower defensive Box Plus/Minus and came in off the bench in at least half their games. The players needed to do that at least once in order to count toward team’s total.

Source: Basketball-Reference.com

Among the traits Beasley shares with many of his offense-heavy predecessors in New York: His stints with various teams have always been relatively short despite his scoring talent. He’s never stuck with one team for more than two years at a time, setting him apart from the average first-round draft pick, who spends an average of 3.8 years with their original team before moving on to a second club, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.3 That raises the question of what, if anything, the 29-year-old Beasley can do to change his well-established reputation as a scorer and not much else.

For fans who rely mostly on the eye test, Beasley’s innate scoring ability feels like nothing short of a necessity for a New York roster that has just two true playmakers in Kristaps Porzingis and Tim Hardaway Jr. By contrast, those more interested in analytics may find the lefty’s game grating due to his shot selection and his defense — the latter, in particular, should be better, given his prototypical size for a combo forward. (He doesn’t provide enough resistance or get into shooters’ bodies as they drive toward the basket.)

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Regardless of where you stand on the former No. 2 overall pick, though, the reality is this: Beasley finds the bottom of the net more than any other NBA reserve on a per-minute basis. In fact, just six players total — Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kyrie Irving, LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Kevin Durant, and Westbrook — outpace him there.

He leans heavily on shots that some would call him foolish for taking. According to data from Second Spectrum and NBA Advanced Stats, Beasley owns the NBA’s eighth-lowest quantified Shot Quality (qSQ),4 which tells you how hard a shot is to make by measuring how likely it is to go in if it’s taken by an average player. “But he’s got great body control,” Knicks coach Jeff Hornacek told me. “Sometimes you’ll think it’s a wild shot, but he’s so smooth and in control of it. And he makes plenty of them.”

To Beasley’s credit, he’s been shrewd about turning down 3s, instead opting for looks closer to the basket. A career-low 10 percent of his shot attempts this season are long, midrange 2s, and a career-high 63 percent of his tries are coming from inside 10 feet. As such, he’s on pace to finish a third consecutive season shooting better than 50 percent from the field. He’s logging 31 points per 100 possessions, and he already has three 30-point games to his credit, including one in which fans at Madison Square Garden repeatedly chanted “MVP” when Beasley went to the line for free throws.

All of which makes it even more curious that he has essentially lived a nomadic basketball life.

The player himself has been quick to acknowledge that he got into trouble off the court and acted immature early in his career. But he feels that he’s still perceived as undisciplined years later, even as teammates and front offices have been pleasantly surprised by how professional he is.

“He works hard, and is always the first one to the gym, and that’s something I didn’t know about him,” said Knicks forward Lance Thomas, the team’s co-captain and longest-tenured player. “He’s always smiling, having a good time. His approach is a lot better than the average person would think based on all the noise that surrounded him.”

One obstacle to finding a perfect basketball marriage: Beasley’s position and on-the-court style don’t generally lend themselves to playing alongside many of the stars he’s teamed up with. This season, he’s played fewer than 200 minutes with Porzingis (whom he usually subs in for). Similarly, last season in Milwaukee he didn’t often share the court with Antetokounmpo, who played a hybrid forward role. (He cites lack of minutes as part of the reason he chose to move on and sign with the Knicks.) Beasley wasn’t always the most natural fit to play alongside LeBron in Miami, either, since James’s teams have often sought to use a stable of established 3-point shooters to open up paint for the four-time MVP. By definition, needing to play separately from a team’s franchise player means someone like Beasley wouldn’t play more than 15 minutes or so per game, barring that star teammate getting injured or getting into foul trouble.

Any way you slice it, it’s still a bit too soon to know whether Beasley’s never-ending carousel of teams will finally stop for a while in New York, or if he’ll make yet another stop after this season. But even if he does move on, one thing is nearly certain: His buckets will join him in the next city.

from News About Sports https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/michael-beasley-is-instant-offense-but-hes-stuck-being-an-nba-nomad/